Past News Items

WASHINGTON – The Department of the Interior will hold a tribal consultation meeting on draft DOI Indian trust management regulations on March 29, 2006, at the Doubletree Hotel, Lloyd Center in Portland, Ore., starting at 8:00 a.m. (local time). The consultation meetings are a component of the Department’s implementation of its Fiduciary Trust Model to improve and reform Indian trust management for the benefit of all Indian beneficiaries.

Appointment of James N. Lowe, Sacramento, Calif., as Chief of the Indian Bureau is newly created Branch of Industrial Development was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin will meet with tribal leaders October 27 through 30, 2003, in Las Vegas, Nev., at a series of consultation meetings on the realignment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) Alaska, Great Plains, Navajo, Northwest, Pacific, Rocky Mountain, Southwest and Western regional and agency offices. The meetings will be held at the MGM Grand Hotel (3799 Las Vegas Blvd.) starting daily at 9:00 a.m. (PST).

A two-year extension of the Interior Department's authority to lease lands on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in western Arizona would benefit the Indians, the Federal Government and the economy of Yuma County, Arizona, Assistant Secretary Roger C. Ernst said today in announcing the Department's support of S. 2161.

The bill would amend the Colorado River Leasing Act of 1955 and would provide such an extension beyond the present August 14, 1957, expiration date.

PREWITT, N. M. - Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today joined students and community members celebrating the opening of Baca/Dlo'ay azhi Community School, a K-6 facility serving approximately 390 students from the Prewitt and Thoreau communities on the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation reservation in New Mexico.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of legislation extending the life of the tribal government of Oklahoma’s Osage Indians until 1984, it was announced today.

The principal function of the Osage tribal government, which is scheduled to expire in 1959 under existing law is to participate with the Secretary of the Interior in the execution of leases for development and extraction of the minerals that were reserved to the Tribe in Osage County, Oklahoma, under 1906 legislation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Special Trustee for American Indians Ross O. Swimmer and Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) will hold presentations beginning next week on the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) for the agencies’ regional employees. The Department is seeking to increase accountability and efficiency in its trust management functions by reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets.

Award of a contract for construction of 7.557 miles of roads on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, Gila and Navajo Counties, Ariz., to Bentson Contracting Company of Phoenix was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Bentson’s bid of $185,330.60 was the lowest of thirteen received. The others ranged from $193,784 to $315,590.

This is the first section of the planned 26-mile road from Fort Apache to U. S. 60 which leads to Globe and Phoenix. Its construction will stimulate further development of the reservation for commercial trade as well as recreation.

Washington DC – Department of the Interior’s Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Aurene Martin applauds the American Indian firefighting crews that were dispatched to assist with the recovery of the space shuttle Columbia, and its crew. The Shuttle broke apart during re-entry February 1, 2003, and is spread over a 500 square-mile area, much of it heavily wooded.

Competitive bidding for oil and gas leases on Indian lands in the "four corners" area of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado has resulted in bonuses for the Indian owners totaling over $45,000,000 in the past six months, the Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

By comparison, the combined income realized by all Indian tribal groups and individual Indian landowners from bonuses, rents and royalties on oil and gas leases in the l2-month period which ended last June 30 was approximately $41,000,000.