Past News Items

A formal agreement has been signed by the Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) with the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) of Washington, D.C., for a comprehensive $700,000 study of surface mining of coal on Indian lands, OSM Director Walter N. Heine announced today.

The study, expected to take nine months, was contracted by OSM under Section 710 of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. CERT was organized three years ago by 25 Indian tribes.

WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior issued the following statement regarding Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

Federal, State and Tribal leaders held their third meeting in Ann Arbor on July 21 and 22 in the search for solutions to problems concerning the northern Great Lakes fishery off Michigan's coastlines.

The group, composed of representatives of the Secretary of the Interior, Michigan Governor's office, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and leaders of the Bay Mills, Grand Traverse and Sault Ste. Marie Tribes issued the following statement:

Russell A. Bradley, a member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Winnebago Agency in Nebraska. His appointment is effective September 10, 1978.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, December 3, 2014, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Deputy Secretary Mike Connor and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn will join President Obama, Vice President Biden, other cabinet Secretaries and leaders from the 566 federally recognized tribes at the 2014 Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced the appointment of Ernest T. Moran as superintendent of the Northern Cheyenne Agency at Lame Deer, Montana and Roland E. Johnson as the first superintendent of the recently established Laguna Agency, Laguna, New Mexico.

The Laguna Pueblo to be served by Johnson has a land area of about 400,000 acres and a membership of about 6,000. It was formerly part of the Southern Pueblos Agency, which included nine other smaller pueblos. The BIA announced in April, 1980 that a new agency was being established to serve Laguna.

The Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs has submitted for publication in the Federal Register final rules governing removal from the roll of Alaska Natives the names of those ineligible under terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

WASHINGTON, DC – Deputy Secretary of the Interior Mike Connor today announced that purchase offers have been sent to nearly 1,800 landowners with fractional interests on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon as part of the Department of the Interior’s commitment to reduce fractionation and strengthen tribal sovereignty through its Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program).

Appointment of Knute H. Lee as Superintendent of the Turtle Mountain Consolidated Indian Agency, Belcourt, N. Dak., was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

A plan for the use and distribution of more than $9 million awarded to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard announced today.

The award is compensation for reservation land taken by the United States in the early part of this century. The reservation is in North Dakota.