Past News Items

The Department of the Interior will publish final regulations to deal with Indian gaming compact negotiations between States and Tribes when Tribes have exhausted other federal judicial remedies. A final rule has been sent to the Federal Register for publication. The new regulation will only apply in cases where Tribes and States have been unable to voluntarily negotiate Class III gaming compacts and where States otherwise allow Class III gaming activities and when States assert immunity from lawsuits to resolve the dispute.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ada E. Deer today announced that the Bureau of lndian Affairs will assume the operations of law enforcement for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma effective immediately for a period of approximately two months. This period will allow the Nation to resolve internal difficulties which have recently developed.

A meeting with senior Clinton Administration officials and 106 tribal leaders on April 28 marked the one-year anniversary of the historic meeting with tribal leaders and President Clinton. This year's meeting focused on progress and accomplishments being made department-by-department in Indian affairs.

President Clinton's fiscal year 1994 budget for the Department of the Interior calls for significant new investments in National Parks and natural resource protection, as well as scientific efforts to help the nation protect endangered species without hurting local economies.

Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel told Congress today that longstanding problems plaguing federal efforts to serve Indian tribes will continue until the tribes, the Congress and the Administration make a unified effort to "find new ways to work together toward our common goal: to create a framework within which American Indians can improve the quality of their lives."

"The old ways of doing things are not leading to the accomplishment of this goal," Hodel said in testimony prepared for the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies of the House Appropriations Committee.

On July 1, 2020, the Kialegee Tribal Town, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, respectively, submitted compacts with the State of Oklahoma governing certain forms of Class III gaming.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan today announced a landmark agreement to allow construction on the Animas-La Plata water project in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding, the endangered fish species in the San Juan Basin will be protected by the water releases from the Navajo Reservoir. In addition, there will be a recovery program for the endangered fish species.

Washington, D.C. - OMB Director Richard Darman and Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan announced today that, effective immediately, all adjustments associated with the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) accounting and financial management system must be reviewed by a special management team established by the Department of the Interior (DOI). Further, Darman and Lujan announced the establishment of a plan to improve management at the BIA.

Washington, DC--Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan announced today that President Bush intends to nominate Frank A. Bracken as Under Secretary of the Interior Department. Currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ball-InCon Glass Packaging Corporation in Muncie, Indiana, Bracken will assume his post at Interior upon confirmation by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Interior Secretary James Watt approved on April 4 a coal mining agreement between the Crow Indian Tribe of Montana and the Shell Oil Company.

Under the agreement Shell will begin mining an estimated 210 million tons of coal from a 2,560 acre tract in the Youngs Creek area of the Crow reservation.