Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs has extended the effective date of its rights-of-way final rule by 90 days. The extension provides grantees, potential grantees, landowners and BIA personnel with more time to review the final rule and to adequately prepare for its implementation.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today the appointment of W. W. Keeler, Bartlesville, Okla., as consultant on planning policy and reorganization of functions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Mr. Keeler, executive vice president of the Phillips Petroleum Company and principal chief of the Cherokee Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, has agreed to serve without compensation for a period of 90 days starting February 5.

WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary –Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts today announced the approval of a $23.5 million loan guarantee to the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) that will allow it to acquire a greater ownership interest in NTUA Wireless, LLC, a telecommunications services company serving the Navajo Nation. The company is a partnership of NTUA and Commnet Wireless, a rural wireless service provider based in Atlanta, Georgia.

SANTA FE INSTITUTE WORK TO BE SHOWN

The Riverside Museum in New York City, famed for its sponsorship of emerging talent and important art trends, has scheduled a showing of “Young American Indian Artists" November 14, 1965 through January 16, 1966.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall and members of Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board will be among the sponsors of the exhibit.

WASHINGTON – As part of President Obama’s Generation Indigenous (“Gen-I”) initiative to remove barriers to success for Native Youth, Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts today announced the launch of the 2016 Indian Affairs Student Leadership Summer Institute, a paid 10-week summer internship program with the agency that begins in early June.

With the opening last month of a large-scale electronics assembly plant on the Navajo Reservation, a trend toward Indian employment in precision industries has been solidly established, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs reported.

The Navajo-based enterprise--Semiconductor Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation of New York--extends the company's worldwide operations to another economically underdeveloped area and offers promise of a further breakthrough in the Indians' efforts to bring new vitality to isolated regions.

Secretarial Order to transform Bureau of Indian Education implements recommendations of American Indian Education Study Group’s “Blueprint for Reform;” BIE redesign will promote tribal self-determination and improve delivery of services to BIE-funded schools

The award of a $384,600 contract for construction of four metal buildings at the 200-man Eight Canyon Job Corps Conservation Center on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in New Mexico was announced today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Eight Canyon Center is located about eight miles southwest of Mescalero, New Mexico. It is one of ten such centers to be operated on Indian Reservation areas as part of a combined work and education program for unemployed youths under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

SEATTLE, WA. – On Thursday, April 24, 2014, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will provide keynote remarks at a tribal summit organized by U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer (WA-6) and hosted by the Suquamish Tribe at the Port Madison Indian Reservation on Bainbridge Island. The Secretary will also meet with individual tribal leaders and tour the Suquamish hatchery and seafood plant with Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman.

Seeking to encourage broader private financing of economic development on Indian reservations, the Department of the Interior has asked Congress for authority to establish an Indians' Loan Guaranty and Insurance Fund of $15 million under administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It would be used to guarantee or insure loans made by private lenders either to Indian organizations or to individuals of one-quarter or more Indian blood.