Past News Items

Seeking to encourage broader private financing of economic development on Indian reservations, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has asked Congress for authority to establish an Indians' Loan Guaranty and Insurance Fund of $15 million under administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Department anticipates that this fund should result in providing $100 million or more of financing to Indians from non-governmental sources.

The following statement was issued today by Ralph E. Erickson, Special Assistant to the Attorney General:

(Washington, D.C.) -- The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office of Law Enforcement Services (OLES) will hold its 13th Annual Memorial Service on Thursday May 6, 2004, to commemorate the sacrifice made by law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty while serving on Indian lands. The Memorial Service will start at 10:00 A.M. MDT on the BIA Indian Police Academy grounds in Artesia, New Mexico.

A Federal appellate court decision is expected to bring additional bids in a competitive sale of oil and gas leases on May 6 in Alaska for 31 tracts of Indian land comprising the 26,000-acre Tyonek Reserve (Moquawkie Reservation) near; Cook Inlet, the Department of the Interior announced today.

All royalties and bonuses from the sale of rights will go to the Tyonek Indians.

The sale was scheduled for May 6 two months ago, but a court appeal then pending had caused some prospective bidders to be reluctant about competing.

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WASHINGTON – David W. Anderson, an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Lake Superior Band of Ojibwa in Wisconsin, who also shares ancestry from the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, and President Bush’s nominee for Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior, was sworn in today by Interior Secretary Gale Norton. “I am deeply honored by the confidence that President Bush and Secretary Norton have shown me through this appointment,” Anderson said.

The Eskimos sometimes arrive at the Seattle Orientation Center, a motel unit near the University of Washington, Seattle, in heavy parkas, wool clothing, and mukluks.

They come to Seattle as the first lap in a journey toward a better life. Each applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska to move to a large city where employment and training opportunities, are better than they are at home.

WASHINGTON–Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney today announced final, updated regulations to simplify the process for Tribes to enter into Tribal Energy Resource Agreements (TERAs) with the Department of the Interior (DOI), so tribes can better take control of developing energy resources on their land. While the opportunity to enter into a TERA has been available since 2008, to date, no Tribe has requested a TERA due to overly burdensome requirements.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced the awarding of a $250,000 grant to the Metlakatla Indian Community (MIC) of the Annette Island Reserve in southeast Alaska to support the tribe’s efforts to explore mineral development on its lands. The grant will fund an environmental review of the tribe’s Bald Ridge Aggregate Project, a proposed quarry that would help alleviate high unemployment among tribal members and provide a source of high quality crushed rock for infrastructure projects in the Pacific Northwest.

The award of a $968,000 contract to remodel and expand the existing Kyle School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota was announced today by tie Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Existing facilities will be remodeled and anew addition will be constructed to provide multipurpose, administrative, and instructional materials spaces, 12 new classrooms, a kitchen, and two locker rooms, together with utilities, paving, and adjunct facilities.