Past News Items

Three American Indians, including Miss Indian America and the curator of the Navajo Tribal Museum. will fly to Germany April 1 as part of the first European promotion of Indian-made merchandise.

They will take part in an "American Week" series being launched in several foreign countries by the Department of Commerce in cooperation with the State Department.

The promotion will test the European sales potential of American Indian merchandise. It is sponsored by two German department store chains, Klingenthal and Gebreuder-Lefferso

WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar kicked off the White House Tribal Nations Conference today at the Interior Department, emphasizing President Obama’s commitment to reform, restructure and rebuild federal relations with Indian Country and underscoring initiatives that are building safer and stronger American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

Anson A. Baker, an enrolled member of the Mandan-Hidatsa Tribe, has been appointed Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Billings, Montana Area Office, Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Forrest J. Gerard announced today. The appointment was effective April 8, 1979.

Baker has been Superintendent of the Blackfeet Agency at Browning, Montana since 1976.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has awarded a $98,750 contract to Twinco-Enki Corp. of San Fernando, Calif., to review and evaluate projects undertaken by the Bureau under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

The Act, which was amended in 1966 to provide funds for Indian education, requires a broad-based evaluation of projects carried out under its provisions. Twinco-Enki will direct the evaluation from its Muskogee, Okla., branch office, which is centrally located for a number of BIA education projects currently operating.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development Jodi Gillette and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director Michael Black met with tribal leaders in Oklahoma City, Okla., today in the sixth regional government-to-government tribal consultation meeting on the Trust Land Consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement. The consultations are part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to re-invigorating nation-to-nation relationships with tribes.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced approval of two agreements between the Navajo Indian Tribe and the Arizona Public S8rvice Company which provide for large-scale development and sale of electric power on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

A plan for the distribution and use of more than $8 million awarded to Saginaw, Swan Creek and Black River Chippewa Indians is being published in the Federal Register, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard announced today.

The judgment award, granted by the Indian Claims Commission, is additional compensation for more than seven million acres of land in Michigan ceded by the Indians to the United States by the treaty of September 24, 1819.

A new federal framework to assist American Indian and Alaska Native communities in achieving their goals in the prevention, intervention, and treatment of alcohol and substance abuse was announced today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Ken Salazar, and Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it favors the enactment of legislation to fix the final construction cost of irrigation works already constructed on the Wapato-Status Unit of the Wapato Indian Irrigation Project in Washington and to allocate that cost on a per-acre basis to the lands that can be served by these works.

In commenting on H. R. 12771, the Department pointed out that the bill is an outgrowth of the desire on the part of the Wapato-Status landowners to know with certainty the total construction charges against their lands.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D, Andrus announced today that he has asked the Department of Justice to file protective notices of appeal from a federal District Court decision involving reservations of easements on Alaskan lands conveyed to Natives.