Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Today, President Donald J. Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law, which will significantly help address the historically underfunded, multi-billion-dollar deferred maintenance backlog at our national parks and public lands.

Forty-three Indian tribal leaders and officials of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will meet December 16-18 in Tampa, Florida, to discuss the reorganization of the BIA.

Regulations governing loans to Indians from the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Revolving Loan Fund are being published in the Federal Register. The regulations have been revised to reflect the provisions of the Indian Financing Act of 1974.

The Indian Financing Act consolidated existing revolving loan funds administered by the Bureau and authorized the appropriation of an additional $50 million for the consolidated fund. Loans from the fund can be made to Indian organizations or individuals for purposes which will improve and promote economic development on Indian reservations.

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) today announced it will increase the reimbursement of auditing costs from 50% to 100% for Indian Tribes participating in the Service's Cooperative and Delegated Audit Program. The program enables States and Tribes to join with MMS in providing additional audit coverage of revenues derived from oil, gas and other mineral leases.

The Department of the Interior today extended until March 18 the period for public comment on proposed revisions of regulations governing mining operations under coal leases on Federal and Indian lands.

Notice of the extension will be published in the Federal Register this week.

The revised regulations would require the reclamation of surface mined coal land to an extent equal to the standards recommended by the Administration for inclusion into Federal legislation on surface or strip mining.

In September, President Trump announced the successful repatriation of ancestral remains and funerary items from Tribes associated with the Mesa Verde region from Finland. Following that effort, the White House has asked the U.S. Departments of the Interior and State to work together to assist other Native American tribes in the repatriation of any additional cultural items abroad.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan announced today he has established a Water Policy Council designed to coordinate departmental policy decisions and management activities in the area of water resources.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has appointed Alton R. Nordwall Deputy Director of the BIA's Muskogee Area.

Nordwall, a member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, worked in the Muskogee office for nine years, 1964-73, as the Area Budget Officer. He left Muskogee to complete a Department of Interior nine-month Manager Development Training Program. Since June of 1974 he has been Assistant Area Director for the Minneapolis Area.

WASHINGTON – The Department of the Interior announced today that the Bureau of Reclamation is awarding a construction contract of almost $62 million for part of the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project in New Mexico to increase the supply of clean drinking water to surrounding communities.

The Reagan Administration has announced support for a bill to transfer title to 25,000 acres of land within Caja del Rio National Forest to the Indians of Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith, testifying before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee July 26, said the land had been fraudulently taken from the Pueblo in the early 19th century and failure to return it to its rightful owners would be a grave injustice.

The land has "considerable symbolic, religious and economic significance to the Pueblo," Smith said.