Past News Items

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.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of President Obama’s commitment to empower tribal nations, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, on behalf of the United States, today signed an historic agreement at the Department of the Interior guaranteeing water rights for the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona. The agreement will also provide funding for infrastructure to deliver clean drinking water to the Reservation, as well as water security for the City of Phoenix and other downstream water users.

Glenn L. Emmons, Gallup, New Mexico, today nominated by President Eisenhower to be Commissioner of Indian Affairs, is 570 He was born at Atmore, Alabama in 1895. His family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he attended public school and the University of New Mexico, leaving the University in 1917 for military service. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps.

Discharged from the Army in 1929, he went to Gallup, New Mexico, to enter the banking business in which he has continued until now.

Proposed regulations governing the assignment by regional corporations of future interests in the Alaska Native Fund were published March 2 in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The regulations are designed to implement Section 31 of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as amended November 1!5, 1977, which gives the Secretary of the Interior the authority to recognize validly executed assignments made by Regional Corporations of their rights to receive payments from the Alaska Native Fund.

WASHINGTON – For the first time in their histories, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services will co-host a special exhibit of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial during the 2013 National Police Week. The special exhibit will be located in the Museum’s Potomac Atrium from May 13 through 17.