Past News Items

WASHINGTON -- As part of President Obama’s commitment to fulfilling this nation’s trust responsibilities to Native Americans, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today named five prominent American Indians to a national commission that will undertake a forward-looking, comprehensive evaluation of Interior’s trust management of nearly $4 billion in Native American trust funds.

Ernest Childers, an Oklahoma Indian who holds the Congressional Medal of Honor for Valor in World War II, has joined the Department of the Interior's Job Corps staff as a regional coordinator, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Education Director Keith O. Moore today announced that he has named Dr. Charles M. “Monty” Roessel as the associate deputy director overseeing 66 BIE-funded schools on the Navajo Nation reservation. Roessel, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, had served since 2007 as superintendent of the Rough Rock Community School, a BIE-funded, tribally operated K-12 boarding school near Chinle, Ariz., on the Nation’s reservation. His appointment is effective today.

Under Secretary of the Interior James A. Joseph announced today the appointment of a task force to develop recommendations for the Secretary on the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"Secretary Andrus wants to insure that the trust responsibilities of the Federal Government are carried out effectively, that services to Native American people are provided efficiently and that tribal governments are strengthened," Joseph said.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk visited Marine Corporal Phillip Baldwin of Ft. Hall, Idaho, today at the Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Echo Hawk, himself a former Marine and past resident of Ft. Hall, visited with the wounded serviceman, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, who lost both legs in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) incident on June 18, 2011. The incident occurred while Corporal Baldwin was on foot patrol near the Helmand Province in Afghanistan.

The Department of the Interior is publishing in the Federal Register a notice that 120,681.25 acres of lands formerly under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management will be held in trust by the United States for the Navajo Indians, for use in connection with an irrigation project.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will deliver a keynote address at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Mid-Year Conference on Tuesday, June 14, 2011, in Milwaukee, Wis. Echo Hawk will be speaking on the accomplishments and progress made by Indian Affairs over the last 24 months. He will address such topics as: federal Indian policy, economic development, restoration of homelands, Indian energy development, safe communities, education, Indian gaming, and Indian Affairs leadership.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it plans to distribute more than $14 million to the Absentee Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma and the Cherokee Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma on July 14, 1977.

The Department announced June 16 that it planned to make the distribution September 15, 1977, but that it would modify its plans for distribution of the funds in accord with any forthcoming court order. Last week the Oklahoma Delawares were given a writ of mandamus requiring the Department to make payment "forthwith."

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary–Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians (Petitioner #84B) as an Indian tribe. This petitioner, located in Santa Ana, Calif., has 455 members.

Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe and officers of the Alaska Native Regional Corporation, Konaig, Inc., today signed an agreement which will facilitate the conveyance of more than one million acres of land to the Corporation and its associated village corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The agreement provides the mechanism for processing land selections in the Konaig region and effecting conveyance of the land despite litigation pending in court.