Past News Items

Commissioner Louis R. Bruce of the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, today announced the approval of a 1965 claims judgment for more than $4.9 million to the Creek Nation of Oklahoma.

The judgment represents more than $1 million in Indian Claims Commission docket 276 and $3.9 million in docket 276. Decision to begin payment was recommended by Claude Cox, Principal Chief of the Creeks; Ed Johnson, Chairman of the Creek Indian Council; and Virgil Harrington, Area Director of the Bureau's Muskogee, Okla. Area Office.

Owen D. Morken, career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will take over as new Director for the Bureau at Juneau, Alaska, January 2, 1966, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

Morken has been assistant area director for economic development at Aberdeen, South Dakota, since the spring of 1962. At Juneau he succeeds Robert L. Bennett, who is now the Deputy Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, D. C.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director Michael S. Black will deliver the keynote address at the 25th Annual Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Service being held Thursday, May 5, 2016, at the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M. He will be accompanied by BIA Office of Justice Services Deputy Bureau Director Darren Cruzan.

Regulations have been issued to govern distribution of I $5,199,660.20 for the Miami Indians of Oklahoma and Indiana, Louis R. Bruce Commissioner of the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, announced today. The new regulations establish qualifications for enrollment and the deadline for filing applications to update the roll of Miami Indians prepared pursuant to a 1966 Act of Congress.

Nearly 400 more Indian college students received scholarships from the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs this year than in 1964, Commissioner Philleo Nash reported today.

BIA awarded college scholarships to 1,718 students--an increase of 30 percent over last year's figure, he said. Grants amounted to $1,225,000, or an average of $700 per student.

WASHINGTON – In keeping with President Obama’s commitment to tribal self-governance and strengthening tribal economies, acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts today announced that Ohkay Owingeh now has the sovereign authority to lease tribal lands consistent with the Helping Expedite and Advance Responsible Tribal Homeownership (or HEARTH) Act. Roberts was joined by Ohkay Owingeh Governor Earl N.

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton today announced approval of revised regulations governing mining exploratory and development operations conducted on Federal and Indian lands under permits and leases issued by the Department of the Interior.

The regulations are not new, Secretary Morton pointed out, but rather are the existing reorganized and clarified regulations. (The revised regulations will be published June 1, 1972 in the Federal Register and will become effective 30 days thereafter.)

The Department of the Interior has issued an administrative order restoring to the San Carlos Apache Tribe full ownership of, approximately 200,000 acres of land known as the "mineral strip," ceded to the Government in 1896.

The land, lying along the southern border of the tribe's Arizona reservation, was ceded by the tribe with the understanding that the Government would supervise mineral recovery on the lands and return all mineral revenues to the tribe.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, May 15, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael Connor will hold a news media teleconference to discuss the schedule for the continued implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program) through the end of calendar year 2015. Connor will be joined by Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn.

Final regulations for preparing aro11 ofA1askaNativeseligib1e to share in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of December 18, 1971, were issued today by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior Harrison Loesch.

(The regulations are scheduled to appear in the Federal Register March 17, 1972.)

The Native Claims Act provides for settlement of awards totaling $962.5 million and 40 million acres of land, and ends a struggle which has been pending since the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, according to Louis R. Bruce, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.