Past News Items

Interior Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs James Canan announced today that 150,000 acres of timberland was purchased April 23 for the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indian tribes of Maine under the terms of the Maine Indian Settlement Act passed last October.

The purchase involved 38 separate tracts of land in East-Central Maine, ranging in size from 30,000 acres to 40 acres. The total cost was $29.6 million. The land was bought from the Dead River Land Company of Maine.

The Department of the Interior, seeking to restore a once-outstanding salmon and steelhead fishery on the Lower Klamath and Trinity Rivers in California, announced today it would closely regulate Indian commercial and subsistence fishing this summer while undertaking “significant” studies aimed at improving the fish resources.

Both rivers flow through the Hoopa Indian Reservation, where regulation and enforcement of commercial and subsistence fishing has been admittedly ineffective.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of the Interior today announced that an additional $1 million has been transferred to the Cobell Education Scholarship Fund, bringing the total transferred in 2014 to more than $4.5 million. The Scholarship Fund was authorized by the historic Cobell Settlement and is funded in part by the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program). The Scholarship Fund provides financial assistance through scholarships to American Indian and Alaska Native students wishing to pursue post-secondary education and training.

The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of South Dakota has selected Cyrin F. Maus for a two-year tribal management assignment under the Tribal Managers Corps (TMC), Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett announced today. Maus, who will begin his general management assignment at Lower Brule in January, 1981, will be the first manager assigned under TMC.

"We are very please that Mr. Maus has decided to come to Lower Brule because he has a lot of valuable experience in tribal government," said Lower Brule spokesman D. L. Fallis.

Representatives of the Interior Department, other, U.S. agencies, and Alaskan Eskimos met last weekend and reached an understanding on the identification and counting of endangered bowhead whales in an effort to avoid exceeding the Eskimo quota for this year.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today issued the following statement on the passing of Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana Chairman Earl J. Barbry Sr.:

Transfer of the Southwestern Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, on August 1, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, to the Bureau of Animal Industry, Department of Agriculture, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. The move fa part of the broad program aimed at narrowing the scope of Indian Bureau operations and transferring responsibilities, wherever possible, to other agencies of Government for to the Indians themselves.

Proposed rules, revising and updating regulations implementing a section of Public Law 93-638 concerning the construction of public schools on or near Indian reservations, are being published in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (P.L. 93-638) authorized the Secretary of the Interior to contract with state education agencies or school districts for the construction or renovation of public school facilities serving reservation Indian students.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced Tribal Wildlife Grants awards to Native American tribes in 14 states to fund a wide range of conservation projects.

“The mindful stewardship of fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats is a value that tribal nations share with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” said Service Director Dan Ashe. “Tribal Wildlife Grants create opportunities for us to work together in a variety of ways, including species restoration, fish passage, protection of migratory birds, and coping with long-term effects of a changing climate.”

Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman today announced the appointment of Mr. Marcy Cully, Bowlegs, Oklahoma, as Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma for the period beginning December 10, 1952 through December 31, 1953.

Mr. Cully, who was elected Assistant Chief at a tribal election held June 3, 1952, fills the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. George Harjo, Sasakwa, Oklahoma, principal chief, on December 9, 1952.

Authority for the appointment of a principal chief of the Seminoles is contained in the Act of April 26, 1906 (34 Stat. 137).