Past News Items

The Department of the Interior said today it has recommended enactment of Federal legislation (8.2384) that would bring greater benefits to Navajo Indians living in San Juan County, Utah, from the leasing of reservation lands for oil and gas development.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus told Bureau of Indian Affairs employees March 31 that he has taken no position - pro or con - on the American Indian Policy Review Commission recommendation to remove Indian affairs from the Department of the Interior in favor of a separate, independent agency.

WASHINGTON–Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he will visit the Rough Rock Community School on Wednesday, Sept. 16, where he will be joined by Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley to attend a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Phase II portion of the Rough Rock Community School Replacement Project.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash, accompanied by other Indian Bureau officials, will travel extensively through Indian areas of North Dakota in early May, and Minnesota in early June, to consult with Government officials and Indian leaders and visit with Indian families in their homes.

For draft documents recommending ways to improve Indian education programs are now available for review and comment by interested persons, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Director of Indian Education Programs William Demmert announced today.

Demmert said that the papers deal with "major matters of immediate concern to me." He said that he hoped Indian tribal governments, school boards, parents and other citizens would take the opportunity to read the documents and make their suggestions.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Larry Echo Hawk, 60, was sworn into office today as the Interior Department’s 11th Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Echo Hawk is an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma whose nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 19, 2009. Secretary Salazar conducted the official swearing in ceremony.

Have you been on or near an Indian reservation and become the proud owner of a concho belt, a squash blossom necklace or earrings, a beadwork purse, some linens, an Indian doll, or some other product representative of the resident Indian tribe? Are you sure that what you bought was a genuine handicraft of the Indians? It is easy to be fooled, and many manufacturers and dealers are getting rich by fooling you.

Regulations governing the handling of minors' shares of judgment funds awarded to Indian tribes and distributed on a per capita basis are being published in the Federal Register, it was announced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs today.

The regulations establish certain restrictions and requirements designed to preserve and protect the per capita shares of minors and other legally incompetent persons as mandated in the Indian Judgment Funds Act of 1973.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today pledged to restore integrity in government relations with Indian tribes, fulfill the United States' trust responsibilities to Native Americans, and work cooperatively to build stronger economies and safer American Indian communities.

Promotion of Alfred Dubray, a career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1938, to the position of superintendent of the Winnebago Agency, Winnebago, Nebraska, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.