Past News Items

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Interior Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced that the Joint DOI/Tribal Leaders Task Force will hold its next meeting on April 25- 26, 2002 in San Diego, Calif. The Task Force was established in February to review plans on improving the Department’s management of individual Indian and tribal trust assets.

The Department of the Interior provided its determination to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the bones of the 9,000 year-old human skeletal remains known as Kennewick Man be given to the five Indian tribes that have collectively claimed him as their ancient ancestor. The decision was announced in a letter from Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera and represents the culmination of a thorough process of scientific examinations and investigations. The U.S.

Surrounded by more than 35 Cowlitz Indians from the State of Washington, Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Kevin Gover today signed the final determination to federally acknowledge their tribe. With 1,482 members, the tribe is located in southwestern Washington state. Historically its villages ranged a distance of 60 miles from the source to the mouth of the Cowlitz River, with an important center at the well-known landmark of the Cowlitz Indian Mission.

In an effort to close solid waste dumps located on tribal lands and help tribes develop alternative solid waste management options, the National Tribal Solid Waste Interagency Workgroup is seeking proposals from tribes for solid waste projects. The workgroup, representing 8 federal agencies, provides funding for tribes to assist with solid waste management and closing open dumps. There are over 1,100 open dumps on Tribal lands in the United States. The deadline for submitting a pre-proposal is November 19, 1999, with the final proposal due February 25, 2000.

The Department of the Interior will publish final regulations to deal with Indian gaming compact negotiations between States and Tribes when Tribes have exhausted other federal judicial remedies. A final rule has been sent to the Federal Register for publication. The new regulation will only apply in cases where Tribes and States have been unable to voluntarily negotiate Class III gaming compacts and where States otherwise allow Class III gaming activities and when States assert immunity from lawsuits to resolve the dispute.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ada E. Deer today announced that the Bureau of lndian Affairs will assume the operations of law enforcement for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma effective immediately for a period of approximately two months. This period will allow the Nation to resolve internal difficulties which have recently developed.

A meeting with senior Clinton Administration officials and 106 tribal leaders on April 28 marked the one-year anniversary of the historic meeting with tribal leaders and President Clinton. This year's meeting focused on progress and accomplishments being made department-by-department in Indian affairs.

President Clinton's fiscal year 1994 budget for the Department of the Interior calls for significant new investments in National Parks and natural resource protection, as well as scientific efforts to help the nation protect endangered species without hurting local economies.

Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel told Congress today that longstanding problems plaguing federal efforts to serve Indian tribes will continue until the tribes, the Congress and the Administration make a unified effort to "find new ways to work together toward our common goal: to create a framework within which American Indians can improve the quality of their lives."

"The old ways of doing things are not leading to the accomplishment of this goal," Hodel said in testimony prepared for the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies of the House Appropriations Committee.

On July 1, 2020, the Kialegee Tribal Town, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, respectively, submitted compacts with the State of Oklahoma governing certain forms of Class III gaming.