On June 14, 1979, an open joint hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs and the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs received testimony from the administration, members of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians, and other interested parties on S. 688 and H.R. 2882. These bills would waive the statute of limitations in the Indian Claims Commission Act and permit the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians to file suit in the U.S. Court of Claims for alleged failure of the Government to uphold treaty obligations agreed to in a treaty entered into by the tribe and the U.S. Government in 1853. Representatives of the Cow Creek Band claim their failure to comply with the deadline is due to the fact that they were not afforded notice or assistance by the Government of their potential claims as mandated in the Indian Claims Commission Act. Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, Forest Gerard, gave a brief history of the Indian Claims Commission Act and its effect on the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians in settling their homeland. Members of the Cow Creek Band testified to the ordeal their people have been through to make claim to land which they have lived on for generations; the discouragement they encountered when the Bureau of Indian Affairs did not recognize them as a tribe or reservation; the struggle they have experienced in obtaining education, housing, jobs, and medical services because they were ineligible for assistance available only to federally recognized tribes; and their greivances against the Government regarding the fulfillment of treaty responsibilities. An extension to submitting a tribal land claim was repeatedly requested. (EB)