Past News Items

A sale of oil and gas leases on Indian lands of the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana which brought in high bonuses totaling over $200,000 for the Indian landowners was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The bids were opened at Browning, Montana, August 24. Bids were received on 51 tracts totaling 13,770 acres. The total of the high bids on 33 tracts of tribal land amounted to $193,444.10. On 18 tracts owned by individual Indians high bonus offerings totaled $19,645.05.

The highest amount per acre bid on any one tract was $52.48.

Forrest J. Gerard, the recently confirmed Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, today challenged national Indian leaders to join in the preparing a national policy statement on Indian affairs.

Gerard made the challenge in an address at the 34th annual convention of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in Dallas, Texas.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will offer remarks at the Society of American Indian Government Employees (SAIGE) 8th Annual National Training Conference being held June 13-17, 2011, at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa in Catoosa, Okla. He will speak during the lunch period on Wednesday, June 15.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it has no objection to statutory postponement of the deadline for termination of Federal trust supervision over the property and affairs of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin beyond the presently scheduled date of December 31, 1960.

Gordon E. Cannon, a Kiowa Indian, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Fort Totten Agency, North Dakota. The appointment is effective August 28.

Cannon, 39, has been the Realty Officer at the Colville Agency, Nespelem, Washington the past three years.

A graduate of the Holy Rosary Mission School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Cannon worked for eleven years in the BIA's Portland Area Office, Oregon. He has also worked at the Western Washington Agency and the Hoopa Agency. He is a U.S. Army veteran.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will deliver the keynote address at the 20th Annual Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Service being held Thursday, May 5, 2011, at the United States Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS) holds the event to honor and commemorate tribal, state, local and federal law enforcement officers working on federal Indian lands and in tribal communities who have given their lives in the line of duty.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of S. 3198, a bill which would permit leasing of Indian lands on all reservations for terms up to a maximum of 99 years, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

Such authority was provided for lands of the Palm Springs Reservation in California by legislation which Congress enacted last year, Mr. Ernst pointed out, and similar bills are pending in Congress which would affect lands of the Navajo Tribe, the Seminoles of Florida and the Torres-Martinez Indians of California.

A final environmental impact statement on a proposal to mine Crow Indian and state-owned coal from nearly 2,000 acres in south-central Montana has been prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, and filed with the Council on Environmental Quality.

The statement discusses the environmental effects of a proposed expansion of Westmoreland Resources' existing Absaloka Coal Mine by 1,958 acres (792 hectares) in Crow Indian Ceded Lands in northern Big Horn County just north of the Crow Indian Reservation.

Washington, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced the schedule for the month of January 2010 for the Interior Department’s series of tribal consultation meetings to develop a Department-wide tribal consultation policy.

The Assistant Secretary noted two changes in the January schedule: the January 5 meeting will be held in Ft. Snelling, Minn., instead of Minneapolis and the January 14 meeting will be held in Palm Springs, Calif., instead of Sacramento.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced the assignment of Sidney M. Carney, a career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to work with "the Seneca Indians of New York on problems resulting from construction of the Kinzua Dam and Reservoir on the Allegheny River.