Past News Items

--First of all, I don't think I have to tell you that there has literally been an explosion in Indian gaming during the last one to two years. No one -- not Congress, Interior, BIA, the Indian people, or anyone else anticipated this tremendous growth. The 1988 legislation did not provide for a time period after it became law for all the safeguards and rules and regulations to be put into place. Neither did it provide time for anyone to hire the necessary expertise to monitor all the things for which we were given the responsibility.

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) today announced that it will pay $541,951 to four Indian tribes as reimbursement of auditing costs for participating in the MMS's Cooperative and Delegated Audit Program during Fiscal Year 1993.

The Navajo Nation will receive $308,866; the Ute Indian Tribe, $87,600; the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, $93,000; and the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, $52,485.

Connecting Indian Country to broadband and energy transmission throughout reservations, pueblos, villages, and communities, is a priority of Indian Affairs. The digital divide in Indian Country will continue to grow, absent any federal assistance.

More than 700 Indian tribes, organizations and individuals have been invited to nominate individuals to serve as voting members on the Board of Trustees of the newly-established Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development, a successor to the current Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Department of the Interior is asking for public comments on proposed regulations containing additional criteria and requirements to be used in evaluating requests to take lands in trust for Indian tribes outside existing reservation boundaries.

The proposed rules were published in the July 15, 1991, edition of the Federal Register and comments must be received within 60 days.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Eddie F. Brown is enlisting Indian tribal leaders and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employees as part of an intensive program to combat the sexual abuse of Indian children.

The first meeting of the Presidential Commission on Indian Reservation Economies will be held 1n Washington, D. C. October 19-20, Co- Chairmen Robert Robertson and Ross Swimmer announce d today.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ken Smith announced that one hundred Indian Tribal leaders, Government Policy Officials and National/ International Travel Leaders will meet to discuss American Indian Tourism Thursday, January 27, 1983.

The meeting, co-sponsored by the Interior Department Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the Commerce Department U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration (USTTA), will be held at the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn, Virginia.

Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith announced today that Maurice W. Babby, an Oglala Sioux, has been named director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Sacramento area.

Babby succeeds William E. Finale, Sacramento area director since 1968, who has accepted an assignment as director of the Phoenix area for a period not to exceed six months. Finale, a 30-year Interior veteran, has announced plans to retire within the next year.

Interior Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs James Canan announced today that 150,000 acres of timberland was purchased April 23 for the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indian tribes of Maine under the terms of the Maine Indian Settlement Act passed last October.

The purchase involved 38 separate tracts of land in East-Central Maine, ranging in size from 30,000 acres to 40 acres. The total cost was $29.6 million. The land was bought from the Dead River Land Company of Maine.