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MEMORANDUM OPINION (“Historical Accounting”) LAMBERTH, District Judge. Table of Contents I.Introduction.72 A. Factual Background.72 1. The Removal of the American Indians.72 2. The Allotment Process.74 3. The Individual Indian Money (IIM Trust).76 B. Procedural Background.81 1. The Filing of the Present Case.81 2. The Phase I Trial.82 3. The Second Contempt Trial. 83 4. The Phase 1.5 Trial.85 II. An Overview of Institutional Reform Litigation.86 A. A Model of an Institutional Reform Case.87 B. Major Settings of Institutional Reform Litigation.92 1. Schools.92 2. Prisons.95 3. Mental Health Facilities.100 4. Public Housing.101 5. Other Settings.104 C. Conclusion.107 III. Separation of Powers.108 A. Introduction.108 B. Judicial-Executive Separation of Powers Cases.110 C. Analysis.118 D. The Role of the Courts in Trust Cases.127 1. Introduction.127 2. American Trust Law.127 E. Conclusion.134 TV. The Mandates of the D.C. Circuit.136 A. Cobell VI.136 B. Cobell VIII.140 C. The Nature and Scope of the Court’s Review.141 V. The Plans.147 A. An Overview of Interior’s Accounting Plan .147 1. Introduction.147 2. The Collection Process.148 a. Indexing of Trust Records.148 b. Collection of Missing Trust Records from Third Parties .148 c. Compilation of Transaction Histories.149 3. The Accounting Process.149 a. The Three Categories of Accounts.149 b. Verification of Transactions.150 4. The Reporting Process. 151 5. The Quality Control Process.151 a. Tests of the IIM Trust Systems.151 b. Other Quality Control Measures.151 B. Adequacies and Deficiencies of Interior’s Accounting Plan.152 1. The Collection Process.152 a. The Availability of Adequate Records ...152 b. Collection of Missing Trust Records from Third Parties .155 c. Indexing of Trust Records and Compilation of Transaction Histories.161 2. The Accounting Process.166 a. Introduction.166 b. Special Deposit Accounts (SDAs).166 e. Judgment and Per Capita Accounts.168 d. Land-Based Accounts.169 (1) Proposed Termination Date of the Accounting.169 (2) Proposed Start Date of the Accounting.172 (3) Deceased Beneficiaries ...173 (4) Assets.175 (5) Direct Pay.177 (6) Contract/CompacVCooperative Agreement.180 (7) Land Escheatment.181 e. Method of Verification .183 (1) Accounting Standards Manual.184 (2) Statistical Sampling.187 3. The Reporting Process.198 4. The Quality Control Process.:.200 a. System Tests .200 b. Other Quality Control Measures.204 C. Plaintiffs’ Accounting Plan .207 VI. Relief to Be Ordered.211 A. The Four-Part Test.211 1. Substantial Likelihood of Prevailing on the Merits.211 2. Irreparable Injury.212 3. Balance of Hardships .212 4. Furtherance of the Public Interest.212 B. Structural Injunction.213 C. Appointment of a Monitor.214 D. Timetable.220 E. Retention of Jurisdiction.224 VII. Conclusion.224 This matter comes before the Court after a forty-four day bench trial. Having undertaken a careful review of all the evidence presented and all representations made during that trial, of the record in this case, and of the applicable law, the Court now enters a structural injunction and appoints a monitor to oversee its implementation. This memorandum opinion is the first of two opinions issued this date. The present opinion deals solely with the further relief ordered by this Court relating to the historical accounting owed by defendants to plaintiffs. The second opinion will treat the further relief ordered by the Court relating to the obligation of the Interior defendants to bring themselves into compliance with the fiduciary duties owed to plaintiffs as the trustee-delegate of the United States for the individual Indian money trust. A decent respect for all who will be affected by today’s rulings makes it appropriate that the Court should provide a full explanation of the reasons compelling it to order such relief. Only an appreciation of the full context in which the present trial emerged will make clear precisely why this Court has determined such relief to be necessary. Part I of this opinion provides a synopsis of this litigation to date. Part II examines the tradition of institutional reform cases, and explains how the present case fits within that tradition. Part III analyzes relevant separation-of-powers issues. Parts IV and V present in detail the Court’s specific findings of fact and conclusions of law. Part VI describes the relief ordered this date. Finally, in Part VII, the Court provides a brief explanation of the profound necessity for the entry of a structural injunction in this matter. I. INTRODUCTION A. Factual Background 1. The Removal of the American Indians The forced removal of American indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands is one of the darkest chapters in American history. Perhaps few today realize, however, that this forced removal did not result from isolated acts of Western settlers; rather, it was set in motion by the federal government. Moreover, few recall the clash between the executive branch and the federal judiciary over the policy of removal, in which the executive branch refused to enforce the mandate of the Supreme Court that American Indian Tribes were to be treated as sovereign entities. In 1827, the Cherokee nation, located within the boundaries of the state of Georgia, adopted a written constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution, which declared them to be a sovereign, autonomous nation. Vine Deloria, Jr & Clifford M. Lytle, American Indians, American Justioe 28 (1983) (“American Indians”). At the time, the Cherokee nation possessed “a thriving agricultural economy, a written language, and a formal government, including a legislature, and courts.” David H. Getches et al., Federal Indian Law 96 (4th ed. 1998) (“Federal Indian Law”). The following year, the state of Georgia passed a law assimilating Cherokee lands into Georgia’s northwestern counties. In 1829, the state passed a law rendering the Cherokee territory located within Georgia boundaries subject to the laws of Georgia, effectively abolishing existing Cherokee laws and customs. The Cherokee nation filed suit in federal court to enjoin the enforcement of the Georgia laws, but the matter was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831). A year after dismissing the case, however, the Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Marshall, determined the Cherokee nation to be “a distinct community, occupying its own territory, ... in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves.... ” Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515, 561, 8 L.Ed. 483 (1832). Prior to the Court’s decision, however, Congress had passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the President to compel Indian Tribes living east of the Mississippi River to migrate westward. Additionally, in 1830, the governor of Georgia had announced that gold had been discovered on the Cherokee lands, prompting widespread trespasses onto Cherokee territory by Georgia citizens searching for gold. Therefore, the governor of Georgia, together with numerous state officials, announced that they would not obey the mandate of the Supreme Court. Federal Indian Law at 122. Moreover, upon learning of the Worcester decision, President Andrew Jackson is fabled to have, retorted: “Well, John Marshall has made his decision — now let him enforce it.” When they realized that the executive branch had no intention of honoring the decision of the Court, the Cherokee nation reluctantly entered into the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. American Indians at 33. Soon afterward, “[n]early sixteen thousand Cherokees walked ‘silent and resigned’ from Georgia to their new homes in what became eastern Oklahoma. This journey has been called the ‘Trail of Tears’ because the Indians were leaving their ancestral lands under the most harsh conditions imaginable.” Id. at 7. The other Tribes dwelling east of the Mississippi River, having witnessed the fate of the Cherokee nation, realized that their removal to the West was inevitable, and entered into treaties with the United States promising to migrate westward. They included the remaining four “Civilized Tribes,” the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole; and other Tribes, including the Kiekapoo, Wyandot, Ottawa, Pottawatomie, Winnebago, Sac and Fox, Delaware, Shawnee, Wea, Peoria, Miami, Kaskaskia, and Piankeshaw. American Indians at 32; Federal Indian Law at 126-27. 2. The Allotment Process As America expanded westward, its citizens re-encountered the Tribes that it had banished to reservations located west of the Mississippi River. Instead of forcing the Tribes to migrate further westward, however, the United States gradually adopted a new policy to deal with “the Indian problem”: the Tribes would simply be assimilated into American culture. Speaking before Congress in 1881, President Chester Arthur declared that the new policy of the United States towards the Indian Tribes would be “to introduce among the Indians the customs and pursuits of civilized life and gradually to absorb them into the mass of our citizens.” American Indians at 8. The primary method by which this policy would be executed was the allotment process. In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act, 24 Stat. 388. It became popularly known as the Dawes Act, after one of its sponsors, Massachusetts Senator Henry Dawes. The Dawes Act authorized the President to divide any Indian reservation into separate plots, and assign the portions to individual tribal members, according to a prescribed formula. The head of a family was allotted a one-fourth section, or 160 acres; each single person over eighteen and each orphan child under eighteen was allotted a one-eighth section, or 80 acres; and each non-orphan child under eighteen was allotted a one-sixteenth section, or 40 acres. Any “surplus” lands that were not allotted to individual Indians were opened to settlement by non-Indians. See Cobell v. Babbitt, 91 F.Supp.2d 1, 8 (D.D.C.1999) (“Cobell V”). Section 5 of the Dawes Act provided that “the United States ... will hold the land thus allotted, for the period of twenty-five years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made, or, in case of his decease, of his heirs” and that after twenty-five years had passed, the United States would convey full title to the land to the Indian to whom the land had been allotted. The United States was authorized to extend the twenty-five year period, in its discretion. As the D.C. Circuit has previously explained, “[d]uring the trust period, individual accounts were to be set up for each Indian with a stake in the allotted lands, and the lands would be managed for the benefit of the individual allottees. Indians could not sell, lease, or otherwise burden their allotted lands without government approval. Where tribes resisted allotment, it could be imposed.” Cobell VI, 240 F.3d at 1087 (citation omitted). One pair of commentators has stated that a key assumption of the government’s allotment policy was that “Indians wanted to become farmers and had the capacity to do so. This policy assumed that the routine work of agriculture would provide the necessary training in thrifty habits that all ‘civilized’ people possessed.” American Indians at 9-10. As one of the individual defendants testified during the first trial in this litigation, the thinking was that it was tribalism that held the Indians back; that what they needed to do was develop the sort of individualism that had been so beneficial for the United States in its expansion, and allotment was the way to do that.... They were so confident in this assimilation policy that there was actually a sunset in most of the allotment agreements that said after 25 years the trust patents will be withdrawn, you’ll be issued a fee patent, each individual who owned this land, and you will go forth and prosper. You will own the land outright, and may do with it what you wish. Cobell V, 91 F.Supp.2d at 8. In short, to quote Theodore Roosevelt, the Dawes Act was designed to be “a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass.” By the early twentieth century, it had become evident that, as judged by its own terms, the allotment process had been an abysmal failure. It had failed to remake the American Indians in the image of the white man, and to absorb the Indian Tribes within American society. To the contrary, “[rjeservations in the early twentieth century were still ‘Indian country’— places where a ‘measured separatism’ had been maintained between Indians and the dominant society.” Federal Indian Law at 191. A comprehensive report issued by Lewis Meriam in 1928 entitled “The Problem of Indian Administration” (commonly known as the Meriam Report) concluded that the assumptions underlying the allotment process had been flawed: “It almost seems as if the government assumed that some magic in individual ownership of property would in itself prove an educational civilizing factor, but unfortunately this policy has for the most part operated in the opposite direction” (quoted in American Indians at 13). Influenced by the findings in the Mer-iam Report, Congress in 1934 passed the Indian Reorganization Act, 48 Stat. 984 (“IRA”). Section 1 of the IRA ended the practice of allotting Indian lands. Section 2, however, provided that “[t]he existing periods of trust placed upon any Indian lands and any restriction on alienation thereof are hereby extended and continued until otherwise directed by Congress.” In other words, any reservation lands that had already been allotted before 1934, but for which full title had not been conveyed to the Indians to whom they had been allotted, were to be held in trust by the United States indefinitely. As such, the United States continues to possess a duty to administer allotted Indian lands in trust for the benefit of the individual Indians to whom they were allotted. The income arising from the administration of those lands held in trust by the United States is the subject of the present suit. 3. The Individual Indian Money (IIM) Trust As a result of the allotment process that took place between 1887-1984, followed by the IRA’s indefinite extension of the trust period, the United States presently holds approximately 11 million acres of land in trust for the heirs of the American Indians to whom they were originally allotted. The United States itself is the trustee of this trust, which is known as the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust. However, Congress has designated the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Treasury to be the trustee-delegates of the United States, and the departments run by these two cabinet secretaries are entrusted with certain trust management responsibilities. The trust responsibilities of the Treasury Department are to maintain and invest IIM funds, under the direction of the Interior Department, and to provide accounting and financial management services. The United States has entrusted most of its trust obligations, however, to the Department of the Interior. Within the Interior Department, several agencies perform particular IIM trust functions. These agencies include the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Office of Trust Funds Management (OTFM), and the Minerals Management Service (MMS). In testimony received during the most recent trial, Interior Deputy Associate Secretary James Cason estimated that since 1909, approximately $13 billion has been received and deposited into the IIM trust. A 1994 Report of the House Committee on Natural Resources provides a useful overview of the IIM trust management system: Funds have been held in trust for American Indians by the Federal Government since 1820. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has had the authority to invest Indian Trust Funds since 1918, however, it was not until 1966 that the BIA exercised its full range of investment authority. The Office of Trust Funds Management (OTFM) within the BIA is responsible for implementing the fiduciary responsibility of ensuring that all proper controls and accountability are maintained with regard to the Indian trust funds. OTFM, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, oversees the trust fund operations at the 12 BIA Area Offices and 93 BIA Agency offices. Trust fund accounts are comprised mainly of money received through the sale or lease of trust lands and include timber stumpage, oil and gas royalties, and agriculture fees. Accounts containing judgment funds awarded to tribes are also maintained. Trust funds controlled by the BIA currently total over $2.1 billion with $1.7 billion in tribal trust funds and $390 million in Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts. Several accounts may be held for each tribe. The BIA is currently managing some 1,880 tribal accounts and nearly 337,000 separate IIM accounts. In order to protect these funds, investments must be unconditionally secured through Federal Government deposit insurance. Funds must be deposited in interest bearing accounts within 30 days of receipt. The Federal Government is responsible for lost interest if funds are not invested within that time. The responsibility for management of Indian Trust Funds by the BIA has been determined through a series of court decisions, treaties, and statutes. H.R. REP. NO. 103-778, at 9 (1994), reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3467, 3468. This committee report also discusses the long history of mismanagement of the IIM trust: Volumes have been written about improper management of funds within the Bureau of Indian Affairs since its inception. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was made a part of the U.S. War Department on March 11, 1824. Almost immediately there was criticism regarding the way it handled financial matters. In 1828, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft a noted negotiator of several Indian treaties and novelist wrote, “The derangements in the fiscal affairs of the Indian department are in the extreme. One would think that appropriations had been handled with a pitchfork.” In 1834 during the first session of the Twenty-third Congress the House of Representatives Committee on Indian Affairs filed a report with accompanying legislation which characterized the administration of Indian Affairs as being “expensive, inefficient, and irresponsible.” Although it is 160 years later, this Committee shares the concerns of its predecessor committee. Over the years numerous audits and reports on Indian trust funds have been published by the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior, the U.S. General Accounting Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congressional Committees. A 1992 report released by the House Committee on Government Operations entitled, “Misplaced Trust: The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Mismanagement of the Indian Trust Fund” details multiple problems with the management of these funds. The report was the culmination of several years of investigation and multiple Congressional hearings on the subject. Among the problems outlined in the report which persist are: • the inability to give proper accounting of balances to each of the account holders; • lack of uniform written policies to govern how accounts are to be managed and under what circumstances funds can be withdrawn; • insufficient training of personnel needed to carry out the duties required; • inadequate automated and record keeping systems. The Office of Management and Budget has consistently, since the 1980’s when such a list was first kept, placed the financial management of Indian trust funds as a high risk liability to the United States. Id at 9-10; 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3468-69. The 1992 report alluded to, entitled Misplaced Trust, “concluded that Interior had made no credible effort to address the problems in trust administration in a “wide range of areas’ and that Interior had disobeyed many congressional directives aimed at forcing Interior to correct trust management practices and reconcile the Indian trust accounts.” Cobell V, 91 F.Supp.2d at 12. Prompted in large part by the findings of the Misplaced Trust report, Congress in 1994 enacted the Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act, Pub.L. No. 103-412, 108 Stat. 4239 (“the 1994 Act”). It will be useful to examine the legislative history of the act, in order to glean the intent of Congress in passing it. The bill was introduced in the House by Congressman Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) as H.R. 4833. On September 26, 1994, then-Congressman Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) explained to the House Subcommittee on Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources the need for passage of such a bill: We have had two hearings on trust management — or, more properly, mismanagement — in the Native American Affairs Subcommittee this Congress .... Since the Government Operations Committee released its report, “Misplaced Trust: The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Mismanagement of the Indian Trust Fund,” I have seen precious little change in this sad state of affairs. Instead, I have seen promised deadlines come and go; I have seen promises to reform go unfulfilled. Despite statements made in the early days of the Clinton administration, two years later neither the [Interior] Department nor the BIA has brought us one step closer to resolving the trust fund problem. All we have seen is a continuation of the BIA’s one unchallenged specialty: inertia. We have seen the pattern repeated over and over. The Department and BIA promise to act, fail to, we are forced to introduce legislation to deal with the issue, and then when passage of the legislation seems imminent they come to us and ask for more time, quote, “because we’re working on the problem, really we are,” unquote, or they offer their own, watered-down, legislative proposal in the hope of heading ours off.... I am sure that this morning we will hear more of the same excuses and promises, more requests to just give it a little more time, from the Department that we have been hearing for the last six years. But, Mr. Chairman, shame on us, shame on this Congress, if we delay any further. The Department told us in August, and I am sure will repeat this morning, that they have everything under control. Well, Mr. Chairman, my response to that is an explicative which decorum prevents me from using here but which I will paraphrase: cow manure! .... Mr. Chairman, the Department needs to pull itself out of denial, pull itself out of its fantasy world, and come to grips with [reality]. It is clear that they are incapable of doing it themselves. I sincerely hope that we can do it for them, and will do everything I can to move a bill before Congress adjourns. 140 Cong. Rec. 27,243 (1994) (emphasis in original). The bill was reported favorably to the full House on September 28, 1994. Five days later, Congressman Mike Synar (D-Okla.) addressed the full House: Mr. Speaker, if ever the words “It is the right thing to do,” meant anything, they mean everything with respect to the legislation we consider today.... We must take this step because the Department itself refuses to adequately address the serious accounting and management problems which have plagued the trust fund program for decades. Over the years, Congress, the General Accounting Office, the Interior Department’s inspector general, and the President’s Office of Management all have issued directives to the Department to develop a comprehensive plan for cleaning up this mess. In many cases, those directives have simply been ignored. At other times, the Department has responded with simplistic, isolated and often ill-conceived initiatives which, even taken together, will never solve the trust fund problems repeatedly found in three separate bureaus of the Department. This legislation is the only way we are going to force the Department to give sustained high-level attention to this issue, and to develop the kind of comprehensive strategic plan that is essential to correcting these serious trust fund problems. And it is the only way Congress and the trust fund account holders will ever have assurance that the Secretary of the Interior is taking the steps necessary to meet his fiduciary obligations to those for whom we are holding these funds in trust.... Mr. Speaker, my Subcommittee on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources has held five separate oversight hearings on this subject since 1989. Mr. Richardson’s subcommittee has also held several hearings in the last two years. Regrettably, year after year we get the same worn-out response from the Interi- or Department. They tell us they’re really on top of this now. They tell us they’re really going to move on needed reforms now. Year after year, on and on with the same commitments. Year after year, those commitments are largely forgotten when the hearings are over. I understand the Interior Department opposes this legislation. That is too bad; we have tried to work in good faith with the Department on correcting these problems and, failing that, on crafting an appropriate legislative measure. I want to assure my colleagues that the Department’s vague last-minute arguments over the bill have no merit whatsoever. And, sadly, their promises of reform are no different, and no better, than those of their predecessors. It is time for Congress to take matters into its own hands, and to require by statute that the Secretary and the Department do what needs to be done to fix these problems and meet the Government’s trust responsibilities to the account holders.... There is an understanding that, after [the seven subcommittee hearings], we have been unable to get the responsiveness that we need out of the BIA to perform the basic fiduciary responsibilities which we would expect out of any trustee. If this was done in the Social Security system, my colleagues, we would have had a war. 40 Cong. ReC. 27,243 — 24,244 (1994) (emphasis added). The statements by the bill’s sponsors demonstrate that the bill was not intended as a mild suggestion to the Interior Department to undertake minor changes. Instead, it was a bill presented by congressmen who had become exasperated by the Interior Department’s repeated refusal to reform its management of the IIM trust, and who intended for the bill to implement sweeping, radical changes in the management of the trust. During a Senate hearing on the management of the IIM trust, Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Haw.) observed that “[t]he management of the Indian trust fund has been grossly inadequate in many respects .... Financial management of the trust has been neglected for decades. Many believe that the crisis which exists in the management of the trust funds can only be cured by dramatic change.” 139 Cong. Reo. 9586 (1993). The House Report on H.R. 4833 speaks to the broad scope of the changes intended to be set in motion by the bill: [t]he [House Committee on Natural Resources] realizes the depth and breadth of the problems regarding Indian trust assets within the [Interior] Department. There must be an absolute long term commitment by the Department to address the problems affecting Indian allotted lands, their resources, and any receipts produced. This commitment would affect nearly every agency in the Department and is essential for the Secretary to properly discharge his trust responsibility. H.R. REP. NO. 103-778, at 10 (1994), reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3467, 3469. This intent is nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in the statements of Congressmen Richardson and Synar regarding H.R. 4833’s immediate predecessor during an oversight hearing on trust fund management: Mr. RichaRdson: ... I would like to ask my colleague a question. Some have suggested that the private sector monies for the Bureau [of Indian Affairs] be handed over to a private entity. You have suggested that the [Government Accounting Office] look into this. Would you like to share your views on this subject? Mr. Synar: I would, Bill, because the frustration that we have had in dealing with this has led us to the conclusion that unless Ada [Deer, then-Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Indian Affairs] and her new regime at BIA can change some basic attitudes down there in mid-level management, it is going to regrettably take us to a point where a year or two from now we will be right back here with the same problem. I have got confidence in Bruce [Babbitt, then-Secretary of the Interior] and Ada and those now committed to this principle. I don’t think there has been a Secretary of Interior we could count on more for this kind of correction. But there comes a point in time where we can’t leave it up to the best intentions of those that are in charge. It may be we have to contract out and do it in a way that will ensure that our Native Americans will have more control over their own destiny, and secondly that we get the kind of accounting we expect in any kind of financial dealings. So I think what we do is, let’s pass the act, make these management reforms, get them in place. Let’s come back here in a year, and if by then we haven’t made some good improvements or we are not moving in the right direction, I think the three of us and others will have to ask the question of whether the government should continue to be involved in this or whether we should let it move into the private sector. Mr. RichardsoN: That seems like a constructive suggestion. Oversight Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Native American Affairs of the Comm, on Natural Resources on Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Management of Trust Funds; and H.R. 1846, 103d Cong. 36-37 (Sept. 27, 1993). In other words, a full year before they sponsored H.R. 4833, these two congressmen were giving serious consideration to privatizing the management of the IIM trust if fundamental reforms were not immediately implemented. During a later oversight hearing on H.R. 4833, Congressman Thomas described the Interior Department as “the most pathetic excuse for government that we now have on the Federal level from top to bottom.” Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Native American Affairs of the Comm, on Natural Resources on H.R. 1846 and 4833, 103d Cong. 64 (Aug. 11, 1994). During the same hearing, Congressman Richardson, the primary sponsor of H.R. 4833, declared: Let us not forget that the United States as a trustee for the Indian nations has solemn fiduciary duties. These duties include the duty of loyalty and the duty to make the corpus productive. We should hold the Federal Government to the same standard as any other trustee. This includes the principle that a trustee should subordinate its own interests to those of the beneficiary. Hence, the status of these funds should be of paramount importance to the Department of Interior, and the needs of the Indian nations with regard to these funds should supersede other obligations the Department may have. Id. at 2. H.R. 4833 was passed by the Congress and signed into law on October 25, 1994 as Public Law 103-412. B. Procedural Background I. The Filing of the Present Case On June 10, 1996, the named plaintiffs commenced the present action against the Secretary of the Interior and other federal officials, alleging that the mismanagement of the IIM trust by the Interior and Treasury departments constituted a breach of their fiduciary duty to plaintiffs. This Court certified the action as a class action on February 4, 1997, and designated the named plaintiffs as class representatives for all present and former IIM beneficiaries. Cobell I, 30 F.Supp.2d at 28. On May 5, 1998, the Court bifurcated this action into two distinct phases. Phase I of the litigation, also known as the “fixing the system” phase, focuses on the reforms instigated by defendants to bring the management of the IIM trust into compliance with their fiduciary obligations. This phase is forward-looking, in that it attempts to discern whether defendants have reformed the management of the IIM trust in such a way as to ensure that the United States will honor its fiduciary obligations to the Indian beneficiaries in the future. Phase II, also known as the “historical accounting phase,” focuses on the performance of a formal accounting of the IIM trust, as required by the 1994 Act. This phase is backward-looking, in that it attempts to discern whether and to what extent the United States has honored its fiduciary obligations to the Indian beneficiaries from the inception of the trust until the present date. • On February 22, 1999, following a two-week bench trial, the Court found Bruce Babbitt, then-Seeretary of the Interior, Robert Rubin, then-Secretary of the Treasury, and Kevin Gover, then-Assistant Secretary of Interior for Indian Affairs, to be in civil contempt for violating two of the Court’s discovery orders. Cobell v. Babbitt, 37 F.Supp.2d 6, 9 (D.D.C.1999) (“Cobell II”). In its conclusion, the Court explained why the extreme step of imposing a contempt sanction was necessary: The court is deeply disappointed that any litigant would fail to obey orders for production of documents, and then conceal and cover-up that disobedience with outright false statements that the court then relied upon. But when that litigant is the federal government, the misconduct is even more troubling. The institutions of our federal government cannot continue to exist if they cannot be trusted. The court here conducted monthly status conferences where plaintiffs complained that the government was not producing the required documents. Because of the court’s great respect for the Justice Department, the court repeatedly accepted the government’s false statements as true, and brushed aside the plaintiffs’ complaints. This two-week contempt trial has certainly proved that the court’s trust in the Justice Department was misplaced. The federal government here did not just stub its toe. It abused the rights of the plaintiffs to obtain these trust documents, and it engaged in a shocking pattern of deception of the court. I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government. Id. at 38. The Court directed the defendants to compensate plaintiffs for the harm suffered, and appointed a special master in this litigation. It also instructed the defendants: “Should it appear at any point that the defendants are not taking all reasonable steps to comply with the orders of this court, then harsher relief will be duly administered.” Id. 2.The Phase I Trial In 1999, the Court conducted a six-week bench trial addressing plaintiffs’ Phase I claims. On December 21, 1999, the Court issued a memorandum opinion containing detailed factual findings and conclusions of law. Cobell v. Babbitt, 91 F.Supp.2d 1 (D.D.C.1999) (“Cobell V”). The Court also issued a declaratory judgment: 1. The [1994 Act] requires defendants to provide plaintiffs an accurate accounting of all money in the IIM trust held in trust for the benefit of plaintiffs, without regard to when the funds were deposited. 2. The [1994 Act] requires defendants to retrieve and retain all information concerning the IIM trust that is necessary to render an accurate accounting of all money in the IIM trust held in trust for the benefit of plaintiffs. 3. To the extent that prospective relief is warranted in this case and to the extent that the issues are in controversy, it has been shown that [the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the Interior] owe plaintiffs, pursuant to the statutes and regulations governing the management of the IIM trust, the statutory trust duty to: (a)establish written policies and procedures for collecting from outside sources missing information necessary to render an accurate accounting of the IIM trust; (b) establish written policies and procedures for the retention of IIM-related trust documents necessary to render an accurate accounting of the IIM trust; (c) establish written policies and procedures for computer and business systems architecture necessary to render an accurate accounting of the IIM trust; and (d) establish written policies and procedures for the staffing of trust management functions necessary to render an accurate accounting of the IIM trust. 4. To the extent that prospective relief is warranted in this case and to the extent that the issues are in controversy, it has been shown that defendant Lawrence Summers, Secretary of the Treasury, owes plaintiffs, pursuant to the statutes and regulations governing the management of the IIM trust, the statutory trust duty to retain IIM trust documents that are necessary to render an accurate accounting of all money in the IIM trust held in trust for the benefit of plaintiffs. 5. Defendants are currently in breach of the statutory trust duties declared in subparagraphs 11(2) — (4). 6. Defendants have no written plans to bring themselves into compliance with the duties declared in subparagraphs H(2) — (4). 7. Defendants must promptly come into compliance by establishing written policies and procedures not inconsistent with the court’s Memorandum Opinion that rectify the breaches of trust declared in subparagraphs 11(2) — (4). Id. at 58. The Court retained jurisdiction over the case for a period of five years, subject to enlargement, and ordered defendants to file quarterly status reports with the Court “setting forth and explaining the steps that defendants have taken to rectify the breaches of trust declared today and to bring themselves into compliance with their statutory trust duties.” Id. at 59. It denied plaintiffs’ request for further prospective relief, explaining: The court has based much of its decision today — especially the denial of more extensive prospective relief — on defendants’ plans (in both substance and timing) to bring themselves into compliance with their trust duties declared today and provided for explicitly by statute .... Should plaintiffs believe that they are entitled to further prospective relief based upon information contained in these reports or otherwise learned, they may so move at the appropriate juncture. Such a motion will then trigger this court’s power of judicial review. Id. Defendants appealed from this decision, arguing (1) that they possessed no judicially-enforeeable duty to account, (2) that reform of the IIM trust had neither been unlawfully withheld nor unreasonably delayed, (3) that this Court lacked sufficient basis to award equitable relief and (4) that the relief awarded was unwarranted. Cobell VI, 240 F.3d at 1094. The D.C. Circuit affirmed, in large part, and remanded to this Court for further proceedings. Id. at 1110. Because the scope of this Court’s jurisdiction on remand remains a contested issue, the Court will analyze Cobell VI at greater length later in this opinion. 3. The Second Contempt Trial On September 17, 2002, following a twenty-nine day bench trial, this Court issued a memorandum opinion. The opinion found Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Interior Secretary of Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb to be in civil contempt of court, in their official capacities, with respect to five specifications: (1) Failing to comply with the Court’s Order of December 21, 1999, to initiate a Historical Accounting Project; (2) Committing a fraud on the Court by concealing the [Interior] Department’s true actions regarding the Historical Accounting Project during the period from March 2000 until January 2001; (3) Committing a fraud on the Court by failing to disclose the true status of the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System project (“TAAMS”) between September 1999 and December 21,1999; (4) Committing a fraud on the Court by filing false and misleading quarterly status reports, starting in March 2000, regarding TAAMS and data cleanup by the BIA; and (5) Committing a fraud on the Court by making false and misleading representations starting in March 2000, regarding the computer security of IIM trust data. Cobell VII, 226 F.Supp.2d at 161. The opinion also explained the necessity for considering further injunctive relief, beyond that imposed at the end of the Phase I trial: It is ... apparent to the Court that the defendants are no closer today to discharging their fiduciary responsibilities properly than they were during the Phase I trial back in the summer of 1999. At the conclusion of that trial, after the plaintiffs proved that the defendants were in breach of the fiduciary duties that they owe to the 300,000 individual Indian trust beneficiaries, the plaintiffs requested that this Court put the IIM trust under court supervision. The Court declined to grant such relief at that time because it felt that it was its constitutional duty to allow the defendants to correct the breaches declared by the Court and those found in the 1994 Act. Thus, by declaring the trust duties of the defendants and remanding the matter back to the agency, the Court granted the least intrusive form of relief that it could fashion. In light of the current posture of this case, it is now obvious that this relief was and is insufficient. The recalcitrance exhibited by the Department of Interior in complying with the orders of this Court is only surpassed by the incompetence that the agency has shown in administering the IIM trust. Accordingly, the Court concludes that while its factual findings and legal conclusions in the Phase I trial ruling were correct (and will therefore not be disturbed), the relief granted by the Court at that time is no longer adequate. Consistent with this conclusion, the Court has determined that it must now consider granting further injunctive relief with respect to the fixing the system portion of the case and the historical accounting project. The Court’s conclusion in this regard is in full accord with the principle that courts should exercise the least possible power adequate to the end proposed. The reason is that there is an equally established axiom that when the least intrusive measures fail to rectify the problems, more intrusive measures are justifiable. Moreover, the D.C. Circuit even explicitly stated that “while th[is] court should (and did) remand to the agency for the proper discharge of its obligations, the court should not abdicate its responsibility to ensure that its instructions are followed. This would seem particularly appropriate where, as here, there is a record of agency recalcitrance and resistance to the fulfillment of its legal duties.” At this juncture, it is crystal clear that more than a declaratory judgment is necessary to ensure that the defendants discharge their fiduciary obligations properly. Id. at 147-48 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). In light of its conclusion to consider further injunctive relief, the Court scheduled further proceedings to determine whether such additional relief was warranted and, if so, to determine the nature and extent of such relief. Because the Court had already conducted a Phase I trial, and because the time was not ripe to conduct a hearing on Phase II of the litigation, the Court designated these proceedings “the Phase 1.5 Trial,” to stress then-nature as an interim stage of this litigation. It explained that this trial would “encompass additional remedies with respect to the fixing the system portion of this case and approving an approach to conducting a historical accounting of the IIM trust accounts.” Id. at 162. Specifically, the Court explained that it planned to enter a structural injunction in this case. Id. at 147 n. 154. The Court directed the Interior defendants to submit two plans to the Court: (1) a plan for conducting a historical accounting of the IIM trust accounts, and (2) a plan for bringing themselves into compliance with the fiduciary obligations owed to the IIM trust beneficiaries. It stressed that these plans should “describe, in detail, the standards by which they intend to administer the IIM trust accounts, and how their proposed actions would bring them into compliance with those standards.” Id. at 148-49. The Court also granted the Treasury Department and plaintiffs leave to file any plan or plans of their own regarding these matters. On January 6, 2003, the Interior defendants and plaintiffs each submitted two plans to this Court. On July 18, 2003, the D.C. Circuit vacated the order of this Court finding defendants Norton and McCaleb to be in civil contempt of court, and directing these defendants to bear the cost of the expenses and fees incurred by plaintiffs in litigating the second contempt trial. Cobell v. Norton, 334 F.3d 1128, 1150 (D.C.Cir.2003) (“Cobell VIII ”). Because the D.C. Circuit did not set aside the findings of fact made in this Court’s September 17, 2002 memorandum opinion, the Court will treat those factual findings as having been established. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a) (“Findings of fact, whether based on oral or documentary evidence, shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.”) 4. The Phase 1.5 Trial The Phase 1.5 Trial began on May 1, 2003 and ended on July 8, 2003. The Court heard forty-four days of testimony and received over 500 exhibits into evidence from both parties. Proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law were submitted by both parties on August 4, 2003. The Court has weighed all of the evidence presented and fully reviewed the arguments presented by the parties, and hereby enters these findings of fact and conclusions of law. The Court must first confront the threshold issue of whether it possesses the remedial authority to enter structural in-junctive relief against the Interior Department. In no uncertain terms, the Interior defendants have recently made clear that “their position on [this issue] remains that it is beyond this Court’s jurisdiction to enter a structural injunction that dictates how the Interior Defendants must conduct trust reform or comply with their obligation to account to individual Indian money (IIM) account holders.” Resp. to Court’s Inquiries During Closing Arguments at 1. Additionally, the Interior defendants “do not consent to a structural injunction of any sort, to another court monitor, or to any sort of board or other entity to perform a monitoring role.” Id. at 2. Because the purpose of the Phase 1.5 trial was to determine whether additional relief, including structural injunctive relief, was warranted in this litigation, and because the Interior defendants have contested the remedial authority of the Court to afford such relief, the Court must analyze carefully the issue of whether it possesses the remedial authority to enter a structural injunction against the Interior Department. Part II of this opinion will therefore examine this litigation within its proper procedural context, namely, the long line of institutional reform cases in the federal courts. The focus of this examination will be upon the remedial measures undertaken in such cases, as well as the limitations that have been placed upon the authority of the federal courts to order such measures. Part III of this opinion will analyze other factors potentially affecting the Court’s ability to enter structural injunctive relief. Specifically, the Court will examine the separation-of-powers principle, the mandates of the D.C. Circuit in its two opinions in this litigation, and the remedial authority afforded to equity courts in trust litigation. After careful consideration of each of these factors, the Court will determine the nature and extent of its remedial authority in this litigation. II. INSTITUTIONAL REFORM LITIGATION As noted above, Interior asserts that this Court lacks jurisdiction to enter a structural injunction in the present case. To the Court’s knowledge, this precise issue has never been submitted for adjudication by a federal court. For guidance on this issue, it will be necessary to look to cases in which such injunctions have been frequently issued — namely, the separate lines of substantive cases that collectively form the body of institutional reform litigation in the federal courts. At least two observations may be made upon surveying the different forms that such litigation has taken. The first is that structural injunctions have been issued (or consent decrees have been entered into) against federal governmental entities in a number of different contexts. The second is that in recent years, the Supreme Court has laid down a number of precedents governing the nature and scope of relief that may be issued in institutional reform cases. It hardly warrants mentioning that, in an institutional reform case such as the present action, the Court must look to binding precedent of the Supreme Court to guide its hand. An examination of the different lines of cases that form the body of institutional reform litigation will allow the Court to examine these important precedents in the substantive context in which they emerged. The scholarly literature on institutional reform litigation, both positive and negative, is vast, and the Court will not attempt to discuss it here. Instead, the Court will confine itself to explaining the typical manner in which such cases develop over time, and summarizing the most prominent substantive areas that have formed the subject of institutional reform cases. A. A Model of an Institutional Reform Case The necessity of institutional reform litigation arises from the problem of government monopoly. In the modern regulatory state, services provided by many institutions (such as schools, foster care facilities, mental health facilities, prisons, and low-cost housing) are provided exclusively or almost exclusively by government entities. The nature of these services is determined by the legislative branch of government, and administered and managed by bureaucracies within the executive branch. A large number of persons may be dependent in some way upon the services provided and administered by these branches. Therefore, if these branches fail to administer these services in conformity with the Constitution or with applicable statutes, the recipients of these services may suffer injury. However, because the government possesses a monopoly or near-monopoly on the provision of these services, it is impossible for the recipients to respond by “voting with their feet.” That is, if the government dispenses a service that is inadequate because it does not conform to constitutional or statutory standards, the recipients may not simply go to a competitor to receive similar services. The monopoly or near-monopoly possessed by the government thus prevents market forces from establishing the most efficient allocation of the services provided. Nor does the power of the vote necessarily furnish an adequate check on these branches to ensure that they comply with constitutional and statutory requirements. For one, the recipients of the services may be disenfranchised — e.g., under the age of eighteen, imprisoned, or committed to the treatment of a mental health facility. Even if the recipients are not disenfranchised, the managers and administrators of such services might well be unresponsive to the voting power. Typically, the types of services in question are not managed directly by elected officials, but by a vast bureaucracy headed by an official who does not run for election. For example, the public does not elect a secretary of housing, an education commissioner, or a director of prisons — it elects a mayor, governor, or president who appoints these officials, who in turn administer the bureaucracy that provides these services. In short, if a government entity administers services in a manner that violates either the Constitution or applicable statutes, neither market forces nor the power of the vote can be relied upon to restore its compliance with the law. However, if the recipients of these services suffer injury caused by the violations of law, they may seek redress for their injury in court. This type of litigation is typically known as “institutional reform litigation” because it is initiated in order to reform a government institution by bringing it into compliance with the Constitution or other governing law. The two defining characteristics of an institutional reform case are (1) the case is founded upon a claim that the statutory or constitutional rights of a class of plaintiffs have been violated by an ongoing governmental practice, and (2) the class of plaintiffs seeks to have the trial court assume an continuing role in monitoring and enforcing structural change within the government entity. One author has presented a useful model of the manner in which such cases often develop and are resolved, dividing them into four key phases: Philip J. Cooper, Hard Judicial Choices 16 (1988) (“Hard Judicial Choices”). The trigger phase is described by Cooper as follows: “In general, the equitable remedy cases are instituted as a reaction to a combination of historic policies or practices plus some triggering event. The cases tend to arise in situations where a number of controversial actions have been taken by one or more government units over time until a trigger level is reached.” Id. at 17. The action is initiated in the trigger phase, and may be dismissed for a number of reasons, e.g., lack of standing. If the action is not dismissed during this initial phase, it proceeds to the liability phase, “the purpose of which is to determine whether there has been a violation of law justifying some sort of remedy and, if so, what is the extent of the injury suffered by the plaintiffs?” Id. at 18. If the trial court finds the defendant to be liable, the remedy phase begins. Cooper’s description of this phase of institutional reform litigation warrants quotation at some length: [The remedy phase] consists of a remedy crafting stage and, often, a parallel appeals process. The product of this remedy phase is a core remedy in the form of a decree or detailed remedy guideline. In many cases, ... there are later interactions between the judge and the parties over requests for detailed modifications of the basic remedy, but these are really remedy refinements related to the implementation of the decrees in what is referred to here as the post decree phase rather than as part of the remedy phase. Remedy crafting consists of a plan development and negotiation stage and a formal decision stage. The judge often plays a facilitator role during the plan development stage, calling upon the parties to negotiate some kind of agreement on how to resolve the problems identified during the liability stage. In some instances the parties will agree on the means to remedy the offending conditions and submit that agreement to the court for legal ratification. In other cases, though, the parties may either not be willing to enter into negotiations at all or, if they do bargain, may be unable to produce a mutually acceptable remedial plan. When the plan development stage reaches its limits, the process becomes more formal and the judge becomes less a facilitator and more a vali-dator, or ratifying official, placing the court’s imprimatur on specific parts of the plans submitted by the parties without regard to voluntary acceptance by the parties .... If the parties are unable to negotiate an agreement, the formal process for remedy crafting begins, usually with the judge calling upon the defendants to work out some kind of plan. The remainder of the formal process often centers on a remedy hearing at which proposals made by the defendants and counterproposals submitted by the plaintiffs are presented and explained. Testimony is taken to determine the appropriateness and feasibility of the plans. Id. at 19. If the court ratifies a negotiated agreement submitted by the parties, the agreement is known as a “consent decree.” If, however, the parties fail to agree, the usual step for the court to take is to issue a “structural injunction.” This term was originated by Professor Owen Fiss, who defined it as an “injunction seeking to effect the reform of a social institution.” Owen M. Fiss, The Civil Rights Injunction 9 (1978); see also Lampkin v. District of Columbia, 886 F.Supp. 56, 62 (D.D.C.1995) (“The purpose of a structural injunction is to remodel an existing social or political institution to bring it into conformity with constitutional demands; e.g., restructuring a school system to facilitate equal educational opportunities. Structural injunctions are typically used as public law remedies for serious and pervasive rights violations.”). In its second contempt opinion, this Court explained that “[structural injunctions are somewhat different than ordinary injunctions, ‘in that their goal is not merely to halt a single wrongful practice, but to halt a group of wrongful practices by restructuring a social institution such as a mental hospital, school, or prison.’ ” Cobell VII, 226 F.Supp.2d at 146 n. 154 (quoting Dan B. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 7.4(4) (2d ed.1993)). As noted by Cooper, in choosing the form that a structural injunction should take, [jjudges may select from among a range of affirmative remedy options. These include process remedies, performance standards, or specified particular actions. Process remedies include such techniques as ordering formation of advisory committees, citizen participation requirements, educational programs, evaluation committees, dispute resolution procedures, or other devices that will operate to remedy past problems without mandating the particular form of action or the specific goals the government must pursue. Performance standards order specific quantities or types of remedial accomplishments, such as numbers or types of new housing units, racial attendance standards in schools, staffing levels at mental health institutions, or other targets, with the means of attainment left to the discretion of the officials who are the defendants in the suit. Specified remedial actions, such as school busing, modified school attendance zones, or required changes in the size and condition or hospital rooms or prison cells leave defendants with little or no flexibility concerning the remedial goals to be achieved or the means of attaining them. Hard Judicial Choices at 20-21 (footnote omitted). A forthcoming article observes that the prevalent trend in the federal courts is to favor what Cooper labels “performance standards” over specified remedial actions. See Charles F. Sabel & William H. Simon, Destabilization Rights: How New Public Law Litigation Succeeds (forthcoming in Harvard Law Review). Another group of authors has divided the provisions of a typical structural injunction into substantive and administrative components. Substantive components consist of “the actions ordered by the court to remove illegal conditions.” Special Project at 814. Administrative components, on the other hand, represent “the means adopted to effect the substantive measures ordered. These means are not themselves required to remedy the wrong; their justification is to be found in the powers of a court of equity to take necessary measures in aid of its decree, not in the constitutional or statutory principles upon which the substantive aspects of the decree are based.” Id. The administrative components of a structural injunction may include the appointment of court officials to administer the remedy, including masters, monitors, or mediators. Id. at 826-30. The final stage in Cooper’s model of an institutional reform case is the post-decree phase. This phase involves a parallel interactive relationship between remedy implementation and evaluation and remedy refinement. In many situations the parties in the case will return to the district judge while the decree is being carried out to ask for changes based upon implementation problems. Frequently, these suggested