approval of the pickford v. glickman settlement is not pay-go client and is in addition to the $100 million already provided for this case by the 2008 farm bill. the next four bills contained in this legislation are four separate water right settlements with native american tribes. taken together they direct the government to fund nearly $1 billion and participate in the construction and maintenance of the specified local water system. the first water rights settlement including this bill provides $324.5 million to create a new rural water system with the white mountain apache tribe in arizona. the second water right settlement included in this bill provides $136 million to approve a settlement agreement among the taos pueblo, the federal government, and state of new mexico. the third water rights settlement including this bill provides $465 million to approve the 1999 settlement between the crow nation and the state of montana. the fourth water right settlement included in this bill authorizes $199 million to a

in the words of timothy pickford the lead plaintiff in the pickford case, hispanics and females -- quote -- these are his words -- "suffered the same discrimination by the u.s. department of agriculture as african american farmers." "suffered the same discrimination by the department of agriculture as african-american farmers." and -- quote again mr. pickford -- "class certification is a procedural matter that does not address the underlying discrimination that is in fact, admitted." "is, in fact, admitted." not a dispute about whether discrimination took place. "is, in fact, admitted." the indisputable fact remains that farmers and ranchers who were particularly women african-american hispanics were denied access to u.s. department of agriculture loans to farm benefits and credit services due to their race their ethnicity their gender and they were not given proper opportunity for recourse. in the process of being denied those opportunities, they lost in many cases their land or sold parts of their land to keep a little bit of it left. the only thing that could be worse than the origina

there's word of a possible agreement on a pickford and coble cases, which refer to long-standing claimse federal government mismanaged funds owed to american indians and discriminated against black farmers to earlier this week, lawmakers approved jacob lew to head at the office of management and budget. they also passed a bill providing temporary payments to doctors who treat medicare patients. back after the thanksgiving break, majority leader reid hopes to work on a food safety bill, and when they also seek debate on an amendment offered by republican senator coburn ending earmarks. more live senate coverage when the gavel comes down here on c-span2. and news from the other side of the capital, ap reports new documents have surfaced in the ethics case of democratic representative maxine waters of california. the house ethics committee says it has postponed her november 29 trial on charges that she improperly tried to obtain federal assistance for a bank or her husband is an investor. waters is a senior member of house financial services committee. she is vigorously fighting the charge