Past News Items

Walter R. Mills, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Superintendent of the Colorado River Agency at Parker, Arizona, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced.

Mills, 43, has been an Indian Self-Determination Specialist in the Phoenix Area Office the past two years. He formerly served as Administrative Manager of the Phoenix Indian School and, earlier, of the Hopi Agency at Keams Canyon, Arizona. He began his career with BIA in 1971 as an instructor at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute at Albuquerque, New Mexico.

American Indians, who still prize eagle feathers for ceremonial status, are joining the fight to save the national bird from extinction. The Red Lake Band of the Chippewa Tribe has designated its 400,000-acre reservation in north-central Minnesota as a Bald Eagle Sanctuary.

The Chippewa lands are on an important eagle migration route and have several active nests. Rare except in Alaska, bald eagles are one of the species Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has designated for management and study under the Endangered Species Act of 1966.

WASHINGTON, DC (January 8, 2010) – U.S. Department of the Interior officials will welcome college football All-American and Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle to Bureau of Indian Education schools in New Mexico and Arizona on January 12-13 to kick off the new Our Way to Health™ Program.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has appointed Bernard W. Topash as the field representative for the Siletz Indian Tribe, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The position is a newly created office to serve the Oregon Indians who were accorded federally-recognized tribal status by legislation passed November 18, 1977.

Topash, a Snohomish and Potawatomi Indian, has been Administrative Manager of the BIA's Fort Hall Agency in Idaho.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of a bill which would amend the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, extending its life for five years beyond the present expiration date of April 10, 1967.

The Commission was established as an independent tribunal to hear and decide all tribal claims against the United States that existed before 1946. Over half the claims cases are still undecided.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk issued the following statement today on the election of the new Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation:

Interior Solicitor Leo M. Krulitz has ruled that the State of New Mexico has no authority to tax royalties paid to the .Jicarilla Apache Tribe for and gas production from tribal lands.

The final environmental impact statement for the Westmoreland Resources
Crow Ceded Area coal leases, pertaining to more than 30,000 acres of land in
Bighorn County, Montana, is now available to the public, Commissioner of
Indian Affairs Ben Reifel announced today.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development Jodi Gillette and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director Michael Black today were in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the second of six regional government-to-government tribal consultations regarding the Trust Land Consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement. The meetings with tribal leaders represent part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to reinvigorating nation-to-nation relationships with tribes.

The Department of the Interior announced today the award of a $144,840 contract for the construction of a 128.-pupil girl’s dormitory at Wingate Vocational School for Indians at Fort Wingate, New Mexico.

This dormitory, when completed, will relieve overcrowding of the present dormitories and provide for an enrollment of 820 pupils.

The successful bidder was Hesselden Construction Company, of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nine higher bids were received, ranging from $146,592.00 to $192,976.00.