WASHINGTON — It didn't take long to see that this week's settlement of a class-action lawsuit over federal management of tribal lands won't change life immediately for Native Americans.

A day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar hailed the resolution of the 13-year-old lawsuit brought by Elouise Cobell, senators grilled Bureau of Indian Affairs officials over a backlog of applications — some a decade old — from tribes needing federal approval to buy land or lease out mineral or grazing rights on their land. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation straddles North and South Dakota, have 11 requests into the BIA, all at least five years old.

"It's not acceptable to have applications sit on a desk for 10 years with no action," Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said. "They just remain in limbo."

The BIA backlog that's delaying tribes' ability to expand reservations or profit from their land is a stark reminder for those who think the historic legal settlement will quickly heal more than a century of strained relations between Native Americans and the federal government.

That's not to diminish the significance of the settlement, announced Tuesday, which would provide $1.4 billion in payments to more than 300,000 Native Americans scattered mostly west of the Mississippi River, whose land is held in trust and overseen by the federal government. Each of those 300,000 people will get at least $1,000, if Congress and a federal court approve the deal as expected.

The government also will spend up to $2 billion to voluntarily buy small parcels of reservation land held by multiple owners, which are expensive to manage and generate little or no income. The land then will be turned over to the tribes.

But if government reform in Native American relations is really going to happen, the key component of the agreement is Salazar's creation of a five-member commission that will spend the next two years reviewing the trust management system and looking for ways to improve it.

"That's the most important part — trust reform going into the future," said Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. "That carries a lot of weight."

Having waged a legal fight for 13 years against federal officials working for three presidents, Cobell said she understands that commissions such as this are only as effective as the administrations that create them. Many such commissions are created for show, she said, but adds she is optimistic that this isn't one of them. As evidence, she cites the willingness of top Obama administration officials to sit down with her earlier this year and talk about a settlement.

"I remember the first meeting (Salazar) came to," she said. "Unannounced, he came walking in, and the first thing he asked me is: 'Who are you? You've sort of upheaved the government, and everybody's talking about the Cobell case, so I wanted to know.' He was serious about (negotiating)."

President Barack Obama has made it a point to reach out to tribal leaders. He met with them during last year's presidential campaign, telling them he had heard of the "stain" the Cobell lawsuit left on the relationship between Native Americans and the federal government.

The president gained trust by appointing Native Americans to key administration posts, emphasizing greater consultation among federal agencies and tribes, and including a hefty increase in aid through his budget and the economic stimulus package, according to tribal leaders. Last month, he invited them to come to Washington, D.C., for a summit to talk about their concerns.

That's a sharp departure from President George W. Bush's administration. Bureau of Indian Affairs officials were told at one point during that administration that tribal applications to put more land in trust acquisition "should be the least of your priorities," George Skibine, acting principal deputy assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the Interior Department, told senators Wednesday. Part of the reason, Skibine said, was uncertainty over the Cobell lawsuit.

Nearly 2,000 purchase applications are on file with the agency, but officials can't say how long ago the applications were filed because the accounting system doesn't track that data.

The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in Michigan waited more than 15 years to get approval for four applications, only to be told in 2007 that they were being returned to the tribe for more information because they were so old, tribal Chairman Derek Bailey told senators.

It's not clear what the Cobell settlement will mean for tribes such as the Grand Traverse in the long run. All tribal officials know so far is that nothing has changed, yet.

"The terrible delays that plague the land-into-trust process are a major impediment to our efforts and to similar efforts by tribal government around the country," Bailey said.