Past News Items

Washington, DC – At the invitation of the Alaska Federation of Natives, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will attend the organization’s leadership meeting in Alaska next week.

This will be Secretary Jewell’s second visit to the state in her official capacity. Jewell has visited Alaska more than a dozen times in previous roles, including as an oil and gas engineer, commercial banker and outdoor recreation business leader.

Alaska is home to three native peoples. The Eskimos, although best known, share the vast land with their island relatives, the Aleuts, and with a large number of Indians.

The story of these native residents of the great northern peninsula that became a State in 1959 is told in a booklet just published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs--Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts of Alaska.

Here is a sampling of some little known facts revealed in the new publication:

WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs George T. Skibine has issued a proposed finding not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Tolowa Nation (TN), Petitioner #85, located in Fort Dick, Calif., as an Indian tribe under the regulations governing the federal acknowledgment process at 25 CFR Part 83. The evidence in the record is insufficient to demonstrate that Petitioner #85 meets the criterion 83.7(b), one of the seven mandatory criteria of the regulations for a determination that the petitioning group is an Indian tribe.

The war on poverty, and our strivings toward a Great Society, have brought the American Indian people into the forefront of the national conscience. There are organizations, such as the Indian Rights Association, which have for years plugged away in behalf of reservation Indians, but the voices have been like whispers under the din of other issues. The voice of the Indian people themselves has not yet been raised in one chorus, although there are signs that this is happening now.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he has taken steps to address the change in accreditation status of the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI), a Bureau of Indian Education post secondary institution of higher learning in Albuquerque, N.M., by its accrediting organization, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

The Miccosukee Indians of Florida and the Red Lake Chippewas of Minnesota soon will have new agency heads, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash has announced.

Reginald C. Miller, the first superintendent of the four-year-old Miccosukee Indian Agency in Florida, leaves that post this month for a new assignment as superintendent of the Red Lake Chippewa Reservation.

Lawrence J. Kozlowski will succeed Miller at Miccosukee Agency headquarters in Homestead, Florida. Kozlowski formerly was assistant superintendent of the Great Lakes Indian Agency at Ashland, Wisconsin.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that the Indian Affairs Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development (IEED), is soliciting proposals from tribes. The grants will be funded through IEED’s Energy and Mineral Development Program (EMDP) that enables tribes to assess, evaluate and promote the development of tribal energy and mineral resources. A formal solicitation was published in the Federal Register on April 27, 2010, by the Department of the Interior.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of three bills affecting Indians now before Congress. One bill would- increase the appropriation authorization for Indian adult vocational education programs and the other two would permit tribes to issue long-term land leases for industrial and commercial development of reservation properties.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary Ken Salazar today announced the Interior Department’s plan of actions, as directed by President Obama in his memorandum dated November 5, 2009, to implement Executive Order 13175, Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments, which directs Executive Branch departments and agencies to develop policies on tribal consultation and cooperation.

The Department of the Interior has recommended that Congress amend certain provisions of "the Act of March 1, 1933, which added lands in southern Utah to the Navajo Indian Reservation.

The act provides that 37.5 percent of net royalties from tribal oil and gas leases on these lands be paid to the State of Utah. The State, in turn, is required to spend the money for “tuition of Indian children in white schools" and for road construction.

As of May 18, 1966 the special fund totaled more than $5 million.