Past News Items

MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- The First Lady’s, Let’s Move! in Indian Country initiative is partnering with the United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY) council, and the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute at the 2011 UNITY National Conference. Let’s Move! in Indian Country (LMIC) is an initiative dedicated to ending childhood obesity among Indian youth, a group which is twice as likely to be overweight when compared to the general U.S. population.

A proposed new set of Federal regulations under which the commercial rights of the Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts of Alaska may be exercised, if they choose to utilize such rights, as announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

The proposal is being forwarded to the Federal Register for publication in the near future. Comments are invited from interested parties for a period of 30 days after the date of publication.

J. Kenneth Adams, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency at Sisseton, South Dakota.

Adams has been the Administrative Officer at the agency. He has been serving as the acting superintendent for the past ten months.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Choctaw Nation of Florida (Petitioner #288) as an Indian tribe.

The petitioner, from Marianna, Fla., and which has about 77 members, claims to be a group of Choctaw Indians who migrated from North Carolina to Georgia and then to Florida following the Indian removals of the 1830s.

The Department of the Interior today announced its support of legislation that would give the Nez Perce Indian Tribe of Idaho beneficial ownership of about 1,700 acres on the Nez Perce Reservation subject to the right of the United States to use the land for agency, school or administrative purposes.

The Tribe has indicated that it intends to use a substantial portion of the land for the development of an "Indian village" as a tourist attraction.

Notice is being published in the Federal Register that the deadline for comments on proposed regulations concerning the development of tribal water codes on reservations has been further extended to July 15, 1977, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. announced today.

The proposed regulations were published March 17, with 30 days allowed for review and comment, Subsequently, this period was extended to June 2.

The extension to July 15 is in response to requests from interested persons.

Washington, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced he has named Dr. Sherry R. Allison, who is currently the acting president of the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute located in Albuquerque, N.M., as SIPI President. Dr. Allison, who is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, had been serving as acting president since January 5, 2009. The appointment is effective December 6, 2009.

The state of Alaska, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Office of Education have reached a basic understanding on educational goals and responsibilities in the 49th state, the Department of the Interior reported today.

The understanding was developed at meetings in Washington, D. C., attended by representatives of the Alaska state Government and the two Federal agencies.

The conference agreed on the following 13 points:

Under Secretary of the Interior James Joseph met April 13 with a delegation from the Crow Indian Tribe from Montana.

Joseph told the delegation the Department of the Interior stands solidly behind its trust obligation to Indian tribes to protect their lands and natural resources and supported strong tribal governments.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today was joined by college football All-American and Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle to announce a new partnership that will introduce an innovative physical fitness and health program into Interior-funded American Indian schools.