The Quinault Indian Nation is slated to accept $22.8 million from the federal government as its cut of a 25 year old class action lawsuit pertaining to a failure by the Congress to fund tribal programs. The whole settlement is $940 million, which is then split up between 699 tribes and tribal organizations, Quinault's portion being the second largest out of all of the tribe's cuts.
The local Chehalis Tribe will receive $2.15 million, Shoalwater Bay is to receive $11.5 million, the Hoh Tribe is to receive $1.63 million, the Quileute is to receive $5.7 million and finally the Makah, to receive $7.7 million.
The compensation is due to the Indian Self Determination Act, set in 1975, an act that gave tribes the authority to manage programs for road maintenance, law enforcement, forest management etc.
Though the government was slated to pay the tribal authorities through contract, full funding would not always make it's way from the government to the tribal authorities resulting in gap of time that the services were being carried out, but no funding was had to pay those carrying the services out. A class action lawsuit was filed on the matter in 1990 and in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that the government should pay and since have been negotiating the amount and distribution of the settlement.