The OIN then sought relief with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). After many failed attempts to negotiate a settlement by an April 2007 deadline, the Department of the Interior launched its own investigation into the compact's validity. On June 13, 2007 when the Associate Deputy Secretary of the Interior declined to reconsider its approval of the compact, Mr. Cason stated, "the 1993 Compact continues to be in effect for purposes of the IGRA". In UCE's lawsuit against the DOI, UCE challenged the DOI's decision regarding the compact's validity in addition to its challenge of the DOI's decision to take land into trust for the OIN. The US Interior Department's position was that the June 13, 2007 correspondence was not the end of it reconsidering the validity of the tribal-state compact, but merely a suspension of its reconsideration.