Past News Items

The Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced the assignment of new supervising engineers for two major Indian irrigation projects w_ the Navajo project on the New Mexico side of the reservation, and the nearly completed Wapato project on the Yakima Reservation at Wapato, Wash.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today congratulated four Bureau of Indian Affairs employees who have received one of the U.S. Attorney General’s highest awards for their work investigating the death of an American Indian teenager on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming last year.

The BIA Office of Justice Services employees, together with 11 U.S. Department of Justice employees and a Seminole tribal police officer, were honored at a departmental ceremony held October 19, 2011, at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

The Department of the Interior today gave copies of final draft litigation reports on the land claims of the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indian tribes in the State of Maine to the Attorney General of that State and attorneys for the tribes. The draft report was delivered earlier in the week to the Justice I Department.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Thursday, August 18, Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development Jodi Gillette and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director Michael Black will attend the second regional government-to-government regional tribal consultation regarding the Trust Land Consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement.

Forrest J. Gerard was ceremonially installed as the Department of the Interior's first Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs October 13.

Before an audience of Indian leaders, Congressional representatives and Interior Department officials, Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus formally administered the oath of office to Gerard.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the Departments of Interior and Justice applauded the final approval by U.S. Senior District Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the settlement of Cobell v. Salazar, a long-running and contentious individual American Indian trust class-action lawsuit. The court’s approval of the $3.4 billion settlement paves the way for payments to be made to as many as a half-million individual American Indians who had Individual Indian Money accounts or an interest in trust or restricted land managed by the Department of the Interior. The suit has been pending for 15 years.

William P. Ragsdale, a Cherokee Indian, has been appointed Superintendent of the Uintah and Ouray Agency, Fort Duchesne, Utah, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

Ragsdale replaces William Streitz who was transferred to the Phoenix Area Office as Indian Trust Protection Officer.

A graduate of Central State College, Edmond, Oklahoma, Ragsdale has been Acting Superintendent at the agency and has been a participant in a Superintendent Intern program at the area office.

WASHINGTON—The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will hold a memorial ceremony on Wednesday, May 11, 2011, to honor the first Native American, post-Prohibition era, ATF investigator killed in the line of duty. The name of William Louis Pappan, a member of the Kaw Nation, who was killed 75 years ago, will be unveiled at the ATF Headquarters Memorial Wall in Washington.

Members of eight Washington State Indian tribes will be provided an extra day each week, under long standing treaty rights, to fish for sockeye and pink salmon this season which begins June 26, the Department of the Interior reported.

WASHINGTON, DC: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today released the following statement regarding the proposal in the House of Representatives to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act