Past News Items

Washington, D.C.— On Thursday, October 6, 2011, Department of the Interior (DOI) Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development Jodi Gillette and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director Michael Black will attend the sixth regional government-to-government tribal consultation regarding the Trust Land Consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement. Tribal leaders from the BIA Eastern Oklahoma and Southern Plains Regions and Other Regions are scheduled to participate in the consultation session.

Award of a $1,600,000 contract for construction of a new school building and two dormitories on the campus of the Haskell Indian Institute at Lawrence, Kansas, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

A plan for the distribution and use of more than $550,000 awarded by the Indian Claims Commission to the Fort Mojave Tribe of Indians is being published in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The funds are additional compensation for reservation lands taken as a result of the construction of the Parker Dam in 1940. The Fort Mojave Reservation lies at the juncture of the southern tip of Nevada with California and Arizona, and includes lands in all three states.

WASHINGTON – Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Jodi Gillette today provided opening remarks at the Action Summit for Suicide Prevention/2nd Annual Methamphetamine and Suicide Prevention Initiative Conference running from August 1- 4, 2011, in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Summit is sponsored in part by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the adoption of changes in the Federal regulations that will make it possible to grant certain rights-of-way permits for oil and gas pipelines across Indian lands for terms up to a maximum of 50 years.

Under the former regulations the maximum term was 20 years with a 20-year renewal. Consent of the Indian landowners was required in connection with both the original term and the renewal. Existing permits are not affected by the new regulations.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has appointed. Jack C. Naylor, a Choctaw Indian, Superintendent of its Miami Agency, Miami, Oklahoma.

Naylor, 42, has been on the faculty of the Haskell Indian Junior College at Lawrence, Kansas, since 1964. He has been a department head, dean of instruction for vocational and technical subjects and coordinator of institutional evaluation. He has been Acting Superintendent of the Horton, Kansas Agency this summer.

WASHINGTON – In a keynote address to tribal leaders attending the National Congress of American Indians 2011 Mid-Year Conference in Milwaukee, Wis., Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today described the progress being made in a comprehensive agenda to restore integrity in U.S. government relations with American Indian and Alaska Native leaders, fulfill trust responsibilities to tribal members, and to work cooperatively to build stronger economies and safer tribal communities.

The President today has declared the Zuni Indian Reservation in New Mexico to be an acute distress area because of drought conditions last summer and unusually severe weather conditions this winter and in making this declaration he is putting into effect the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1949, as amended by section 301 of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, to make emergency livestock feed available to the members of the reservation.

A final environmental impact statement concerning the long-term leasing of Tesuque Pueblo Reservation lands north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for residential development use by the Sangre de Cristo Development Company is now available to the public, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Michael S. Black today announced that the BIA’s Office of Justice Services (OJS) has created a training program for tribal court judges, prosecutors, clerks and administrators in an effort to improve the administration of justice in Indian Country. The program was developed in collaboration with the University of New Mexico School of Law’s Institute of Public Law (IPL) and Southwest Indian Law Clinic (SILC) and the American Indian Law Center, Inc. (AILC) in Albuquerque, N.M.