Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt today signed agreements to complete final action on implementation of the Fort McDowell Indian Community Water Rights Act of 1990.

Clinton Pattea, President of the Fort McDowell Indian Community, joined Secretary Babbitt in signing the agreements at a ceremony held at the Interior Department. Also attending the ceremony was Ada Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.

The Lifetime Learning and Rebuild America economic stimulus package proposed by President Clinton will provide economic development opportunities, rebuild and maintain roads, repair schools, jails and juvenile detention centers, and provide funds to operate elementary and secondary schools on many of America's Indian reservations.

The total stimulus package calls for $102.4 million, with most of the funds to be spent by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for the benefit of Indians by the end of Fiscal Year 1993.

The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) welcomes tribal leadership and stakeholders to attend an informational virtual meeting scheduled for 2:00 pm eastern standard time on July 8 to hear BIE leadership present its plans for distributing its Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to schools to support the COVID-19 Pandemic recovery.

A Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) investment that created three "business opportunity centers" last September is paying off with real jobs for Indian people.

The Rensselaerville Institute of Rensselaerville, N.Y., one of the three new centers, has been working with tribes and individual Indian entrepreneurs across the country. It has created and saved a total of 84 jobs.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Richard Darman and the Intertribal Monitoring Association for Indian Trust Funds announced today the creation of a new OMB-Interior "SWAT" team. Its purpose is to address financial management problems associated with the $2 billion in Indian trust funds. The management problems include:

Failure to reconcile or audit the 300,000 trust fund accounts, some of which are more than 50 years old;

The Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary .for Indian Affairs, Eddie F. Brown, today announced the appointment of Patrick A. Hayes as Deputy to the Assistant Secretary for Trust and Economic Development. The 44-year-old enrolled member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe has been acting in the position for the past several months. The appointment is effective immediately.

Leaders of the Ak-Chin Tribe in Arizona and the Department of Interior have signed an "agreement in principle” for the revision of legislation designed to assure the Tribe of a permanent water supply, provided in an economically efficient manner, according to William P. Horn , Interior Deputy Under Secretary .

Interior Secretary James Watt, Agricultural Secretary John R. Block and representatives of Chugach Natives, Inc. today signed an agreement that provides for the final major settlement with regional corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA). The State of Alaska, also a party to the agreement, will sign shortly. “

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced that it is reinstituting comprehensive stock reduction efforts, including impoundment when necessary, in the former Navajo-Hopi Joint Use area.

Impoundment as a means of livestock reduction was discontinued May 11, at the request of Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald for a discussion of procedures and issues. The BIA is responsible, under a mandate of the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (P.L. 93-531), for keeping the number of livestock within the carrying capacity of the range in the now partitioned areas.

Ken Smith, a Wasco Indian from Oregon nominated by President Reagan to be the Department of Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, told members of the Senate Select Indian Affairs Committee his ''beliefs and philosophy" on Indian matters at a confirmation hearing April 28.

With tribal council members from Smith's Warm Springs Reservation in full regalia in the hearing room, Smith expressed his belief "in the strengths of Indian people which have enabled them to endure and survive as a people through adversities and oppressions unparalleled in history."