Past News Items

WASHINGTON, D.C.

I have called this news conference today to announce a series of actions relating to Indian water rights, contracts, roads, self-government, and legislative programs.

My purpose in taking these initiatives towards Indian self-government is setting a course for the Bureau of Indian Affairs designed to protect Indian Resources and effectively with the roads of Indian dissatisfaction poverty unemployment and inadequate educational background in my opinion to advance the cause of the Indian people of this nation.

First, water rights.

The Department of the Interior has amended existing Federal Regulations governing preparation of tribal rolls and enrollment appeals, to implement preparation of rolls for the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska, a current activity of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The amendments to Title 25, Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 41 and 42, became effective upon publication in the Federal Register June 1, 1966. They establish qualifications for enrollment in the Tlingit and Haida Tribes and set a June 30, 1967 deadline for filing applications.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – In a speech this morning to the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar described the progress being made in a comprehensive agenda to reform, restructure and rebuild federal relations with Indian Country.

Secretary Salazar outlined a broad range of efforts underway to restore integrity in U.S. government relations with American Indian and Alaska Native leaders, fulfill trust responsibilities to tribal members, and to work cooperatively to build stronger economies and safer tribal communities.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has established a new agency at Siletz, Oregon to serve the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Acting Deputy Commissioner Sidney Mills announced today.

The federally recognized status of the Siletz Tribes, ended under the Termination Act of 1954, was restored by an Act of November 18, 1977.

The BIA has had a field office at Siletz under the direction of a field representative, Bernard Topash. He will continue as the officer in charge until further notice. Steps are now being taken to fill the position of agency superintendent, Mills said.

The Department of the Interior today announced the award of a $3,859,000 contract for construction of a new 18-classroom school facility at Sanostee, on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office of Justice Services (OJS) Division of Drug Enforcement (DDE) worked in successful cooperation with the Caddo County Okla. Sheriff’s Office, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN), and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to halt a drug operation discovered by a lease holder looking for lost livestock. The land being leased is a Kiowa tribal member’s allotment near Carnegie, Okla.

The Crow Indians are the first Indian Tribe to receive advanced funding to plan abandoned coal mine reclamation, Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus announced today.

The Tribe will get $156,545 to help prepare its reclamation program. The funding became available with the signing of the cooperative agreement between the Tribe and Interior's Office of Surface Mining (OSM).

When the first year's operations under the War on Poverty were summed up recently, the record showed that Indian reservation communities were among the most responsive of all groups to the self-help challenges of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

WASHINGTON, DC- Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk announced today that savings in the Indian Affairs’ American Recovery and Reinvestment Act construction projects will be used to start four additional high-priority school projects in Arizona, New Mexico and South Dakota.