Past News Items

The Department of the Interior has recommended to Congress that legislation be enacted to distribute $2,500,000 in judgment funds to the Klamath Indians of Oregon.

The amount was settled upon by attorneys for the United States and for the Indians and represents redress for insufficient payment for lands ceded to the United States under Treaty in 1864. The case was adjudicated by the Indian Claims Commission last year and funds were appropriated by Congress in June 1964. The additional legislation is now needed to authorize final disposition.

WASHINGTON – The Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform will hold its final public meeting on Nov. 20, 2013, via webinar. The Commission is completing a comprehensive evaluation of the Department of the Interior’s management and administration of Indian trust assets within a two-year period and will offer recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior of how to improve in the future.

The award of a $659,850 contract for the construction of new vocational training facilities at Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, was announced today by Philleo Nash, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

The project marks the first major step toward conversion of the 80-year-old high school for Indians into a post-secondary technical institute.

In announcing the construction contract award Nash said:

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced the Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development (IEED) awarded over $5 million to 34 tribal projects that will assist in the development of energy and mineral resources on tribal lands. The awards include funding for renewable hydroelectric projects that will provide low-cost clean power to tribal members and other customers, and help to expand tribal economies by opening new business opportunities.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today gave $1,500 to Sidney M. Carney, Bureau of Indian Affairs, for sustained superior performance as a Federal employee.

Carney, a Choctaw Indian, is a special liaison representative with the Seneca Indian Nation at Salamanca, N.Y.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced that Indian Affairs offices and bureaus have hired nearly 600 American Indian and Alaska Native veterans in Fiscal Year 2015, exceeding the goal set last year to increase the number of Native American veterans employed by these agencies from nine percent of the workforce to 12.5 percent.

What is it like to be an Indian or Eskimo child? It is part ceremonials and dances and colorful costumes of an era gone by, and it is part school days and rule days, too. It is sometimes life on a ranch, sometimes adventure in the big city, sometimes the life of a fisherman's family, says the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Because nearly all youngsters love stories about American Indians, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs has just published a special picture book, "Indian and Eskimo Children."

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today released the first of two reports developed by the Rangeland Fire Task Force.

A $261,176 contract has been awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a road improvement project on the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho. The reservation is the home of about 1,770 Shoshone and Bannock Indians.

Contract specifications call for crushed rock base and bituminous plant-mix surfacing of slightly over 12 miles of the Ross Fork and Lone Pine roads, located one mile east of the Fort Hall Indian Agency.

This project is part of the Bureau’s long- term program to improve transportation on Indian reservations through better roads.

Washington, D.C. - Today, the Departments of Justice, Interior and Agriculture applauded the bipartisan House passage of the Claims Settlement Act. The Act, which recently passed the Senate, will provide long-awaited funding for the agreements reached in the Pigford II lawsuit, brought by African American farmers; the Cobell lawsuit, brought by Native Americans over the management of Indian trust accounts and resources; and four separate water rights suits made by Native American tribes. President Obama has said that he will sign the legislation into law.