Past News Items

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (AS-IA) Kevin Gover signed on December 16, 1997, a Final Determination that denies Federal acknowledgment of the Mobile - Washington County Band of Choctaw Indians of South Alabama (MOWA) of Mount Vernon, AL.

Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs is thrilled to announce that there is $34.6 million in loan guarantee authority currently available to assist tribal and individual enterprises on or near Indian reservations.

--First of all, I don't think I have to tell you that there has literally been an explosion in Indian gaming during the last one to two years. No one -- not Congress, Interior, BIA, the Indian people, or anyone else anticipated this tremendous growth. The 1988 legislation did not provide for a time period after it became law for all the safeguards and rules and regulations to be put into place. Neither did it provide time for anyone to hire the necessary expertise to monitor all the things for which we were given the responsibility.

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) today announced that it will pay $541,951 to four Indian tribes as reimbursement of auditing costs for participating in the MMS's Cooperative and Delegated Audit Program during Fiscal Year 1993.

The Navajo Nation will receive $308,866; the Ute Indian Tribe, $87,600; the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, $93,000; and the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, $52,485.

Connecting Indian Country to broadband and energy transmission throughout reservations, pueblos, villages, and communities, is a priority of Indian Affairs. The digital divide in Indian Country will continue to grow, absent any federal assistance.

More than 700 Indian tribes, organizations and individuals have been invited to nominate individuals to serve as voting members on the Board of Trustees of the newly-established Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development, a successor to the current Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Department of the Interior is asking for public comments on proposed regulations containing additional criteria and requirements to be used in evaluating requests to take lands in trust for Indian tribes outside existing reservation boundaries.

The proposed rules were published in the July 15, 1991, edition of the Federal Register and comments must be received within 60 days.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Eddie F. Brown is enlisting Indian tribal leaders and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employees as part of an intensive program to combat the sexual abuse of Indian children.

A Bureau of Indian Affairs concept paper on reducing costs at the central office and area office levels by consolidating administrative functions and making other changes has been sent to Indian leaders for review and counsel, 'Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith said today.

The concept paper on "streamlining the Bureau of Indian Affairs" has been sent to nine tribal leaders, appointed by NTCA and NCAI in March to function as an Indian Policy Review Team for Smith and Interior Secretary James Watt.

Dr. S. Gabe Paxton, Jr., a Choctaw Indian, has been appointed to serve as Deputy Director, Office of Indian Education Programs, Kenneth L. Smith, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, announced today.

Most recently, Paxton held positions of Area Vocational Development Officer and Area Indian Self Determination Officer at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Muskogee Area Office in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1977 he was the Associate Deputy Commissioner for Indian Education in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.