Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today made a public statement on the current status of a claim against the United States filed with the Indian Claims commission in 1948 by the Creek Indian Tribe.

The claim involves compensation for about nine million acres in Georgia and Alabama, ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb today announced two separate actions concerning the final rule titled “Acquisition of Title to Land in Trust.” One action further extends the effective date of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) final rule on placing lands into trust that were published on January 16, 2001.

The Department of the Interior announced today that Thomas H. Dodge, superintendent for the past seven years at San Carlos Indian Agency, San Carlos, Ariz., will transfer on November 26 to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where he will serve as superintendent of the Osage Agency, replacing Russell G. Fister.

Mr. Fister has retired, effective December 31, after 32 years of service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has issued a final determination to acknowledge the Duwamish Tribal Organization, hereafter referred to as the Duwamish of Renton, Washington, as existing as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law. The Duwamish first filed a letter of intent to petition for Federal acknowledgement on June 7, 1977.

Award of a $76,714 contract for the construction of approximately 36 earth filled detention dams on the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project is part of the over-all Papago Development Program for the social and economic development of the Papago people.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Gover spoke Thursday, March 19, about critical American Indian issues and his vision for Tribal America during a University of South Dakota School of Law symposium on "Indian Nations on the Eve of 21st Century: Sovereignty, Self-Government, Water Rights, Land Rights." The speech was taped by C-SPAN for later broadcast.

Award of three contracts totaling $1,024,915.10 for road improvement work on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and in Utah near the "Four Corners" area, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Thanks to a newly developed process that streamlines the planning, design, and construction of Indian schools, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will be able to complete new schools in half the time or less. This means that the current seven to eight years that it has taken to build or renovate a school 'will now require only three years or less.

Award of a $624,782 road construction contract that will provide an all-weather bus route to enlarged school facilities at Kayenta, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract, which was awarded to Lyle Price of Flagstaff, covers construction and bituminous surfacing of a 19.2-mile section of road in northern Arizona between Kayenta and Utah State Highway 47 at the Utah Line.

On April 25, 1996, President Clinton approved leg1siation extending the date that a Final Rule for the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 (P.L. 93-638) be published in the Federal Register. The date required by the Indian Self-Determination Act Amendments of 1994 (P.L. 103-413) was April 25, 1996. This legislation provides for a 60-day extension and sets a new publication date of June 25, 1996 for a rule, Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs announced.