Past News Items

WASHINGTON - Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced the departure of Michael D. Olsen, currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs, who is going to work for the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management in the Department of the Interior where he will assume the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. Artman also announced that effective Monday, April 2, 2007, George T.

Award of a $398,800 contract for the construction of a dormitory and related facilities at Aztec 1 New Mexico that will make it possible for 128 additional Navajo Indian pupils to attend the public schools at nearby Farmington was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for the construction of one 128-pupil dormitory; a 256- pupil kitchen-dining-multipurpose building; and a utility building. Sidewalks utility connections and other site improvements are also included in the contract.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason today announced that the Department of the Interior has declined to acknowledge that a group known as the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenaki located in and around Swanton, Vt., is an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.

The Department of the Interior today announced its endorsement of proposed Federal legislation that would permit the leasing of Indian lands on the Fort Mojave Reservation in Arizona, California, and Nevada for periods up to a maximum of 99 years.

Under present law the maximum term permitted for such leases is 25 years, with an option to renew for an additional 25 years.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of Martin E. Seneca, Jr., 32, to be Director of Trust Responsibilities, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C., effective May 12, 1974. His post is the second of five directorships - top jobs within the bureau of Indian Affairs - to be filled.

WASHINGTON – Department of the Interior Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason today announced a partnership effort involving the Bureau of Indian Affairs, South Dakota Senator John Thune, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds, and Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Chairman Duane Big Eagle involving an initiative to address the devastating effects of a fire in the Crow Creek school dormitory in Fort Thompson, South Dakota on Sunday, April 24, 2005.

More than $1 million in new construction is slated for the Indian school at Chilocco, Oklahoma, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash announced today.

Regulations to govern the preparation of a roll of members of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma to be used for the distribution of funds awarded by the Indian Claims Commission were published in the Federal Register, August 6, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The Apache, Kiowa and Comanche Tribes were awarded more than $35 million as additional payment for land ceded to the United States by treaties concluded in 1865 and 1867.

WASHINGTON - Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles said today the Department is gratified by a ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia - a ruling which largely reverses a U.S. District Court injunction issued more than one year ago in the long-running Indian Trust case. Today's ruling is now the third consecutive time that the circuit court has broadly reversed significant rulings by Judge Royce Lamberth in the case.

By 1970, more than 500,000 visitors may be traveling to a new national recreation area in Montana and Wyoming and enjoying the same scenic mountains, canyons, and rivers where an unknown Indian tribe lived in prehistoric times.

The Department of the Interior has announced it favors enactment of Federal legislation which would authorize establishment of the 63,000-acre Big Horn Canyon National Recreation Area surrounding Yellowtail Reservoir in southern Montana and northern Wyoming.