Past News Items

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.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Attorney General Eric Holder today announced a settlement of the long-running and highly contentious Cobell class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and accounting of over three hundred thousand individual American Indian trust accounts. Also speaking at the press conference today were Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli.

Proposed new regulations governing mining and mineral development contracts on Indian lands were published in the Federal Register April 5, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Raymond v. Butler announced today.

Butler said that "new regulations, when completed and made effective, will have a major impact on the Indian community by furthering Indian self-determination, providing for new types of mineral development contracts and reflecting national and tribal environmental concerns. "

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk joined Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley and other Indian Affairs and Navajo tribal officials September 16 in a ceremonial groundbreaking event for Phase II of a major school replacement and improvement project at the historic Rough Rock Community School on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona.

President Jimmy Carter showed a special interest in Indian affairs when he visited the Department of the Interior Friday, February 18.

The President, scheduled to speak to Interior employees in the Department's auditorium, came early, went directly to the fourth floor wing housing the Commissioner of Indian Affairs' offices, shook hands and exchanged greetings with BIA staffers in the hall and then visited with Acting Commissioner Raymond V. Butler for a few minutes.

SALT LAKE CITY – An unprecedented two-year undercover operation led by agents from Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the FBI today began rounding up what prosecutors call a ring of archeological grave robbers who looted pristine sites in the Southwest, desecrated ancient American Indian burials and stole priceless artifacts, selling them to dealers and collectors who were associated with the network.

Proposed regulations for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Housing Improvement Program (HIP) have been published in the Federal Register, it was announced today.

"This Bureau program," commissioner Morris Thompson said, "complements the programs of other Federal housing agencies. Thousands of Indian families are living in substandard homes or homes needing repairs. This program provides assistance when other resources are not available.”

DENVER, CO – Today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar made the following statement in honor of Crow Tribal Chairman Carl Venne, who died this weekend in Montana:

The BIA's Portland Area Office had a communications seminar October 12-13, at Kahneeta Lodge on the Warm Springs reservation. Representatives from the Northwest tribes and agencies talked with journalists and other media experts about ways and whys of improving Indian communications and public relations.

Most of the participants, an informal survey showed, thought some good things happened.

Don Sider from Time Magazine's Washington, D. C. bureau talked knowledgeable bout Indians' problems in getting accurate and adequate coverage in non-Indian publications.